Mischief Night
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: The A-Team takes on a new mission at Halloween, what could possibly go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

Mischief Night

The door to Colonel Decker's office was dark, no light shone through the frosted glass window. It was late, the Federal Building was largely empty, most everyone had gone home for the night hours ago. The approaching footsteps echoed deafeningly as an unexpected visitor marched down the large and vacant corridor leading directly to the colonel's office. The door was unlocked, it opened, and very little light shone in, but enough to see the Colonel leaned back in his chair, his head tilted back, and Roderick Decker was in a dead sleep.

Hannibal Smith closed the door behind him without making a sound, and went around to the desk and watched the Colonel sleeping soundly for a few seconds before tapping the not-so-esteemed Colonel on the head to wake him up. Decker opened his eyes, even in the dark able to make out who his uninvited visitor was, let out a slow exhale of contempt, sat up straight, and collected his hat from where it rested on his chest.

"Trick or treat," Hannibal said with an all too confident grin on his face.

However the other colonel wasn't about to give in to Hannibal's jokes and his comment was disregarded entirely.

"I'm having a sign painted on that door," Decker said in a low, groggy voice as he straightened himself up.

Hannibal smirked knowingly, "Oh really? What's it say?"

" 'No visitors'," Decker replied, and he asked Hannibal, "What do you want, Smith?"

"I just thought you might like to know," Hannibal told him in a slightly more serious tone, "If you want to continue this wild goose chase for the sake of your superiors, we've got a new mission we're leaving for first thing in the morning."

It had been a few weeks since they'd last had an encounter with Decker and the MPs and Hannibal had decided it was time to get everybody riled up again. The truth of the matter was that he and Decker were equally in a position that each could just barely tolerate the other; Decker had no interest in seeing the A-Team caught and court-martialed, but he was willing to go along with it. The general who had sought him out for the job was dumb enough to believe it, and the MPs were young and inexperienced enough to blindly buy every word he said; if he said jump, they jumped, if he said chase down the A-Team, they certainly _tried_, but the whole lot of them always wound up looking like the last place losers of a combination demolition derby/wacky race. Hannibal knew at the core of it all, Decker got a laugh out of how stupid the army wound up looking every time this happened, and yet they still hadn't learned their lesson and still expected _somebody_ to catch the A-Team. Neither one of them knew how long it would be before they transferred Decker out to bring in somebody more 'competent', but the two colonels had decided in whatever time they had, to give the army a run for all they were worth, and make the whole military look like an even bigger bunch of jackasses than Lynch was able to in his whole 10 years chasing the Team.

To Hannibal, it wasn't even a matter of revenge or 'getting even', because _nothing_ could even the score of what the army they had served in had done to them, but he _did_ get a kick out of making the men in green and their superiors actually _giving_ the orders all look like a bunch of idiots. For Decker it _was_ more personal though, he'd confided into Hannibal early on that he saw it as a perfect opportunity to indirectly make the army suffer for 'knocking the hat off his career and any possibility of furthering his rank'. They'd come to him because he was the best at what he did, but he knew even that wouldn't be enough to guarantee a higher rank, even if he _did_ capture the A-Team himself, they would find some loophole to keep him exactly where he was. He knew full well from the start that they were just stringing him along to get somebody else to do their dirty work for them, _as usual_. If he was going to go down anyway, he intended to make sure a few others came with him; if he was going to be disgraced by his constant failure to capture the A-Team, he would see to it the Generals who gave him the job looked like the bigger idiots for selecting him.

Hannibal didn't necessarily agree with the man because he _still_ remembered what Decker had been responsible for back in Vietnam, but he also knew nothing could change the past and if they could wind up with a trump card up their sleeve that would further ensure their constant getaway from the MPs, then he was willing to call a truce with the disgruntled colonel. Still, for now, Hannibal had decided this was best kept between the two of them only; as far as the rest of the A-Team was concerned, Decker was their enemy who would have them on the first plane back to Fort Bragg if he caught them. It made for a much more convincing show for everyone involved when Face, B.A. and Murdock thought they were giving it their all to get away from the MPs; though Decker had taken measures to make sure Murdock's part on the Team remained a mystery. Any time they met up during a confrontation, Decker always made sure to purposely _not_ see Murdock, because few of the MPs on the job were familiar enough with the pilot's background to actually identify him. And so, like clockwork, Hannibal would get in touch with Decker and give him a tip about an upcoming mission, where they could be found, and like clockwork Decker would come with a parade of MPs for a big show, _just_ like clockwork, never fail.

"I don't care," Decker replied dismissively.

Hannibal did a double take, that wasn't the Roderick Decker he knew. "You sick or something, Decker?"

"You might say that," Decker opened his jacket and pulled up the right side of his shirt, revealing a discolored lump sticking out of his abdomen.

"Looks like you're trying to pass an egg," Hannibal said, "How long have you had that?"

"I've been waiting for a damn sawbones to look at it for three weeks. You remember, don't you, Smith? The time you had that Sergeant of yours _flip_ our car like a cheeseburger?"

Hannibal snorted and tried to cover it, and tried to say with a straight face, "Sorry, Roderick ol' boy, you walked into that one."

"And spent half an hour getting it back on its wheels," he replied.

"3 weeks and no one's even _looked_ at it?" Hannibal asked in disbelief, "Boy the country sure knows how to treat the men that served it, doesn't it?"

Decker only groaned under his breath in response as he buttoned his jacket again.

"So when _are_ you getting it looked at?" Hannibal asked.

"8 A.M. tomorrow morning," Decker told him, "After which I'm sure the surgery will be imminent, followed by roughly a 2 week recovery in the hospital. You're on your own, Smith."

"Well don't think it won't be fun without you, Decker," Hannibal told him, "Because it _will_."

"Very funny," Decker replied.

"Providing the local yokel arm of the law doesn't get involved, we could actually have a job for once with no interruptions," Hannibal said, "We're overdue for one of those."

"How did you even get in here?" Decker wanted to know.

Despite being in the dark, Hannibal pointed to her wristwatch, "It's after 1 o' clock in the morning, Roderick, anybody who's still here isn't going to pay attention."

"Should've guessed."

"Oh well, good luck at the doctor's tomorrow," Hannibal said as he turned and headed for the door.

"By the way, Smith, what _is_ this latest case of yours?"

"Oh, you'll get a kick out of this one," Hannibal told him as he turned back towards the colonel, "A haunted house." With that he went out the door and pulled it shut behind him, notably louder this time.

"Why not?" Decker asked over a grimace as his hernia gave him a fresh bout of trouble.


	2. Chapter 2

"So tell it to us again, Hannibal," Face said the next morning in the van as they were driving along to meet their latest client, "Exactly _how_ did we get this case? I don't remember meeting with anybody."

"Me either," B.A. added, already looking very suspicious about the whole thing.

"I remember meeting somebody," Murdock said from his spot in the back, "But I don't remember who, and I don't remember where."

"You can't remember nothing," B.A. told him.

"Not true," Murdock replied.

Hannibal cut them off, "I met with this client and agreed on everybody's behalf to take the case because it's of personal interest to me."

"I already have a feeling I'm going to regret this," Face whined to Murdock.

"You always say that, Face," B.A. reminded him.

"Because I always do," Face replied.

"So what's this 'personal interest' of yours, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.

Hannibal just smirked and said to his Sergeant, "Don't you believe in ghosts, B.A.?"

"No I don't," he replied.

"I do!" Murdock spoke up from the backseat, "I know I do!"

"Incase you forgot, Hannibal," Face spoke up also, "We're not the Ghostbusters, so what're we gonna do?"

"You'll see," Hannibal responded, "Don't forget, Face, it _is_ Halloween, this _is_ their time of the year."

"Ain't that the truth?" Murdock asked.

"Oh brother," B.A. grumbled and rolled his eyes.

"What's the matter, B.A.?" Face asked.

"I remember history class in school," B.A. said, "I know the background of this crazy day, and I _smell_ another Irish bit," he glared at their Colonel through the corner of his eyes, "Just like all those proverbs about your 'dear departed father'."

"What's the matter, B.A.?" Hannibal asked, "Don't you have any Halloween spirit?"

"No," B.A. growled, "Especially since some sucker snatched all the pumpkins the kids from the center made this morning."

"Aw man, that's low," Face said.

"It's strange too, it's _early_, but then again it _is_ the 30th," Murdock said as though that explained it.

"What's that got to do with anything, ya crazy fool?" B.A. wanted to know.

"B.A. if you _knew_ your Halloween history you would know that back when Halloween was divided into separate holidays back to back, the night of October 30th was originally Mischief Night when pranks and vandalism run rampant, something _still_ practiced today in choice places."

"I don't care," B.A. told him, "I find the sucker that stole the pumpkins, I'm gonna make a jack-o-lantern out of _him_."

"Well isn't that pleasant?" Face sarcastically remarked.

A thought occurred to Murdock, "How do you suppose they got the idea to carve pumpkins instead of turnips?"

Face looked to Hannibal questioningly, wordlessly asking if this was typical Murdock craziness or not.

"You ever wonder where the term jack-o-lantern came from, Face?" Hannibal asked, "It was a legend about a man who died, he was so bad God wouldn't take him, he tricked the devil so he couldn't take his soul either, so he was cursed to wander the earth for eternity with just a lantern to guide his way, so they called him Jack of the Lantern. In Ireland, people originally carved turnips to make lanterns out of for Halloween."

"Turnips?" Face repeated, and asked, "How do you get a candle down in one of those?"

"Lot of carving," Murdock replied, "Now I saw some bell peppers at the supermarket the other day that would be _perfect_ for carving faces into."

"Oh brother." B.A. would've right now rather be anywhere except listening to these people jibber-jabber like a bunch of crazy fools, he bent his head over and hit it against the horn in the steering wheel in aggravation.

"Even when he's _awake_ he still lands on the horn," Face quietly noted to Hannibal.

"Uh huh," Hannibal responded nonchalantly.

* * *

><p>"That don't look like <em>no<em> haunted house to me, Hannibal," Murdock said as they pulled up to the curb and saw the house in question in the middle of the block.

"Me either," B.A. found himself oddly enough agreeing with Murdock as he leaned back in the driver's seat and folded his arms against his chest.

Indeed it didn't look like any place that people would intentionally cross the street to avoid walking by. A decent looking, nice sized, two story brick house with a black tiled roof. The full green lawn was well tended to and looked like it received professional care. Face was already working in his mind what a house like this could go for on the market. It was a nice place on a nice piece of land in what seemed to be a nice neighborhood…

"Well," he thought and said to Murdock, "Then again, what's a haunted house _look_ like?"

"Let's go," Hannibal said as he opened the door on his side.

The Captain and the Lieutenant looked to each other and shrugged mutually.

"Let's get this over with and find out what's going on," Face said. He commented to Murdock, "If this _is_ a day of tasteless pranks, I sure hope this isn't _one_ of them."

Altogether they piled out of the van and the others followed Hannibal up to the front porch where he rang the bell, but there was no answer.

"You're sure they knew we were coming?" Face asked.

"Positive," Hannibal said, and tried rapping on the door.

Murdock put his ear to the wall and tried to listen to the inside of the house for oncoming footsteps and vibrating floorboards. Nothing. "I don't think there's anybody here, Colonel."

"Somebody gave us the runaround," Face was inclined to agree.

But Hannibal shook his head and was adamant, "It couldn't be."

"Who's down there?" a voice called from above.

All four men backed off of the porch out to the sidewalk and looked up, and saw a woman looking down from an open window on the second floor upstairs.

Hannibal gave a small wave and offered the best smile he could manage on the spot, "Hello ma'am, remember me?"

The woman upstairs leaned further out of the window to look down, and seemed to make the connection. "Oh yes, just a minute and I'll be right down."

"This isn't a haunted house," Face murmured to Murdock, "It's a nuthouse!"

Murdock's eyes lit up, "I think I'm gonna like it here."


	3. Chapter 3

A minute later the door opened and a small woman in her 50s in a simple housedress and apron, with hair already whitening and tied up, said to them, "Come on in. Of course you realize I have to take precautions when people come to the house, especially these days of all days."

"Maybe you could better explain that to us," Face suggested as they stepped in.

"Guys," Hannibal gestured to the woman, "Say hello to Maude Hinckley, she owns the place."

"How do you do, ma'am?" Murdock took off his baseball cap and bowed to her.

"Our esteemed leader conveniently neglected to explain to us what's going on," Face said to her, "So maybe you could fill us in on it."

"Oh certainly," the little woman said as she wiped her hands on her apron, "Well come into the living room and sit down, make yourselves at home."

"Is she kidding?" Face asked Hannibal.

"Move, Face," Hannibal told him as he gave the Lieutenant a less than subtle shove in the general direction of the living room. On the way in, Face got a little look around the place and saw that it was very well kept; exquisitely decorated, all the woodwork shone like it was just varnished, up on tall shelves were neatly lined up pieces of bric-a-brac, obviously the woman was an excellent housekeeper. Given they were supposed to be in a haunted house, he found it very ironic.

"Is this place really haunted?" Murdock asked as he looked around the house, as if expecting something to jump out and yell 'boo'.

"That certainly seems to be the general consensus around here," Maude said in lieu of answering as she gestured for everyone to sit down and she did the same, "Has been ever since I moved in here."

"But is it?" Face asked as he found a vacant chair, feeling that this truly had to be some kind of joke.

The little older woman looked at the four men slowly before answering and said, "I wouldn't call it _haunted_. There's obviously life in this house, other than my own. My husband, Wilfred, God bless him, passed away in this house eight years ago…I laid him out right in this very room."

Subtly, Face pushed his chair back slightly and moved closer to Murdock.

"His spirit remains here," she told them, "He always told me if there was such a thing as reincarnation, he would like to come back as a rose. Shortly after the funeral, this house was full of all kinds of flowers imaginable: tulips, carnations, lilies, and oh so many roses." She shook her head slowly, "In time they all died and in time they were all thrown away, a couple months later the whole house smelled to high heaven just _full_ of roses, and I knew then that Wilfred had come back."

Face looked around the room suspiciously, his eyes roaming wild but his head scarcely moving, and he asked, "Uh…is he here _now_?"

"He comes and he goes," she said, "I get the feeling that he knows when I miss him the most and need him here and he comes back, and then when I'm doing better, he leaves again, but he always comes back. But he's not the _only_ life in this house."

"You mean there're more?" Face asked, feeling a slight twinge of eye strain as he was sure his eyeballs just doubled in size absentmindedly.

Maude looked to the ceiling and solemnly explained, "There was a young woman murdered here many years ago. She too was laid out in this house before her burial, and for many years she was said to walk the floors here, trying to find who killed her."

"Is there any truth to that?" Hannibal asked her.

Maude turned her head to the side and seemed to be looking at something in particular through the corner of one eye, "I've lived in this house for 12 years, it wasn't until after we moved in that we first heard the stories. Even then…I never really believed in ghosts, until after Wilfred passed." She nodded slowly, "The girl _is_ here. You never fully see her…she appears from time to time, but never in full detail…a lot of times you never see her face, just this…black void, and these two piercing bright eyes."

"Has she bothered you?" Hannibal asked.

"I wouldn't say bothered…I was surprised the first time I saw her, but I've gotten used to her presence…but," she shook he head, "Most people avoid this house at all costs. They've got it in their heads that on the times she appears, the whole place becomes like a bloodbath, taking everything back to the time of her murder. It's never happened, but everybody else knows _so_ much, they certainly think they do anyway. Mind you, not _everyone_ believes the stories…most of the people who _are_ willing to come to this house, you know, read the meters, any repairs, they're all skeptics, don't believe a word of it, so it's no problem for them. But I was surprised to find out over the years just how many people in this town _do_ seem to believe the stories; a lot of them seem to try and avoid me like the plague the times I go into town to run errands. If it weren't for Wilfred, I would be _very_ lonely here."

"So where do we come into all this?" B.A. wanted to know.

"I need help," Maude said as her full attention returned to the present and to her guests, "Wilfred and I managed to get this house very cheap when we bought it years ago, but I would never be able to sell it now, no one wants it, not even for a tourist attraction; I checked with appraisers and realtors, nobody would take the place…I wouldn't want to anyway, my Wilfred is _here_, my whole life is here now. But a couple weeks ago, things started happening here…to try and get me to leave."

Murdock's eyebrows raised curiously and he asked her, "What kind of things?"

"I've been finding notes shoved under the front door, warning me to get out. Last night, somebody tossed a rock through the window in the door with a note attached to it, 'Last warning, leave now or a terrible fate awaits you'. That's why when you were at the door, I answered from upstairs…I wasn't about to take a chance that they'd try it again. I'd just gotten the window replaced before you arrived."

"So the question is," Hannibal said as he fished a cigar out of his pocket, "_Why_ would somebody try to _scare_ somebody _out_ of a house that's supposed to _already_ be haunted?"

Maude nodded her head slowly and said, "I figured if anybody could figure it out, it must be the A-Team."

"Well uh," Face cleared his throat, "This isn't exactly our area of expertise but…"

"Do you have someone you could stay with for the night?" Hannibal asked.

"Uh…" she shook her head, "My daughter lives in Seattle, I couldn't possibly make a trip like that just to…"

"Do you mind if I use your phone?" Hannibal asked.

She pointed into the dining room, "Over there, help yourself."

"What're you going to do, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.

"I'm going to see if Amy's back at the Courier yet, and if she _is_, I'm going to have her take Miss Hinckley to a motel for the night." Hannibal dialed the L.A. newspaper and put the receiver to his ear, and in a very commanding voice he said into the mouthpiece, "_Hello_! I'd like to speak to Amy Amanda Allen."

"I don't understand," Maude said to the younger men, "What's going on?"

"Once we find out," Face assured her, just as clueless as she was, "You'll be the first to know." He suddenly got a feeling that it might be better if she wasn't present for Hannibal's phone call and he said to her, "Excuse me, could I trouble you for a drink?"

"No trouble at all, I'll be right back," Maude said as she padded off to the kitchen.

"Amy," Hannibal said into the phone, "Where've you been hiding? …Oh very funny. Listen, I've got a job for you…first I want you to answer a question, are you familiar with the Bregovy House? …Yes, _that's_ the place…that's where we are now…" Hannibal held the phone away from his ear momentarily, then said into the receiver, "That's not very ladylike." What the young reporter said next had him hold the phone away again for a few seconds, before saying into the mouthpiece, "You say that one more time, Amy, and when you get up here I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap. What's the matter with you? You don't mean to tell me that a worldly reporter is going to give in to a few measly ghost stories? Listen…get up here, I want you to take our client to a motel, preferably _out_ of the town limits…after that I want you to stay with her…whatever you do _don't_ bring her back and don't let her _come_ back until Halloween's over. Don't ask me why, I'll explain to you later when there's time, for now we've got work to do…alright, bye."

"What was that all about, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.

"Amy disappoints me," Hannibal said absently as he dug a new cigar out of his jacket, "I expected a sophisticated, mature, logical newswoman, what do I get? What might as well be some 10 year old ninny scared out of her wits."

At that moment, Maude came out of the kitchen with a tall glass of ice tea, and asked if she could offer anyone else any refreshments. Murdock took the initiative to suggest some hot coffee for the rest of them to buy them a little time, they had to have a word with their Colonel and they didn't need her listening in on it.

Face went over to the Colonel and said to him, "You called this place the Bregovy House, why?"

"Because," Hannibal answered as he bit down on the cigar, "Allison Bregovy was the young woman murdered here…that's how everybody knew the house for years."

"You know this place?" Face asked.

"I know the stories," Hannibal answered, "They'd already been going around for years when _I_ was a kid." He looked his Lieutenant square in the eyes and told him, "The rumors were that she was murdered in this house the night before she was supposed to be married. Some people suspected her fiancée went berserk when he thought she was cheating on him, but nobody could ever prove anything and the murder went unsolved and has stayed such for over 50 years."

"And you believe that?" Face asked.

"I always wanted to find out," Hannibal said, "Now if ghosts exist, this one does because Mrs. Hinckley's seen it herself."

"Or thinks she did," Face said.

"Unless it's another ghost," Murdock suggested.

"Good point," Hannibal seemed to seriously consider it, "I've always wanted to find out the full history of this place."

Face felt like he was in the middle of an insane tennis match, looking from Hannibal to Murdock and back to Hannibal as the two of them swapped theories and ideas back and forth, so he stepped out from in between them and went over to B.A., the most logical person in the bunch; very odd given how the man tended to dress.

"The real question goes back to why somebody would be trying to scare that nice old woman out of this house," Hannibal said, "That's why we need to find out the complete history of the place." He turned towards his Lieutenant, "Face…"

"Yeah I know, go check the city records," Face said, "You couldn't have Amy do that before she takes Maude to a motel?"

"No because on the way I have a detour errand for Amy to run," Hannibal told him and went over to the dining room table where he'd placed a box the others hadn't seen on their way in.

"What's that?" Murdock asked.

"I found out Colonel Decker is in the hospital for a hernia surgery, so I'm going to have Amy deliver a get-well present to the front desk."

"What're you sending him, a jump rope?" Face asked sarcastically.

"Nope," Hannibal grinned and shook his head, "Just a little package in time for Halloween: peanut butter pumpkins, licorice spiders, and a little card." He opened the top of the box and took out a Halloween card and held it out to Face.

Face took the card and read what Hannibal had written inside of it, " 'Roses are red, violets are blue, Glen Miller and Lenny Bruce were dead at 40 so why weren't you?'" Face rolled his eyes and looked to their leader, "You can't be serious."

"Oh why not?" Hannibal replied, "If that doesn't speed up his recovery, _nothing_ will."

"Hannibal, we told you before about encouraging that fool, Decker," B.A. said, "Only thing worse than him on his own is you egging him on."

"All I need to do now," Hannibal said as he put the card back in the box, "Is find a couple apples to cut the skin open a little."

"What for?" Face asked.

"To make him think I put razor blades in them," Hannibal answered as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"It's official," Face said to Hannibal, "You are a _sick_ man."

"Thanks for noticing," Hannibal replied, unfazed.

Face turned to Murdock and asked him, "Is it just me or does Hannibal seem to be getting _weirder_ than usual?"

"I hadn't noticed," Murdock answered.

"Hadn't no…" Face went over to B.A. again and asked him, "Would you do me a favor and knock me out _now_ and avoid the rush?"


	4. Chapter 4

"Amy's going to be here soon and get Maude away from the place for the next couple days," Hannibal explained, "While she's doing that, Face, you go to town hall and get the records on this house and see what you can find."

"Can I go too?" Murdock asked.

"To town hall?" Face asked.

"Uh no, I have a couple errands to run," Murdock answered.

"Why not?" Hannibal sounded slightly agitated, but continued, "While they're gone, we're going to search this house from attic to basement and see if we find anything unusual."

"Like what?" B.A. asked confusedly.

"Oh you know, big guy," Murdock said as he put his arms into his jacket, "Zebras in the bathtub, rooms turned upside down, furniture lined on the walls, just all the usual unusual stuff."

"Hannibal!" B.A. growled.

"Good_bye_, Murdock," Hannibal said with a small wave.

"Come on, Murdock," Face grumbled, "Let's get this over with."

Once they were out the door and on their way back to the van, B.A. turned to Hannibal and said, "So you know this place, eh?"

"_About_ it," Hannibal said, "The Bregovy murder was big news when I was growing up. Of course back then the police didn't know anything about cordoning off the crime scene to preserve whatever evidence they could find, must've been a hundred people trampled through the house, to see the body, to see the house, to look for anything, to talk to the cops, distorting any evidence they could've found to prove _who_ did it."

"If the ghost is real, you think that's why she comes back?" B.A. asked.

"What's the matter, B.A.?" Hannibal asked teasingly, "You starting to believe in ghosts?"

"That woman ain't crazy," B.A. said.

"Well, that is the number one rule about ghosts, they don't come back for no reason," Hannibal said, "Unfinished business is usually the culprit. Murder victims want closure, they want their killer caught, they want their body found, they want to be buried, they want someone to know who they were. Of course then there are ghosts of accident victims, those are almost worse."

B.A. looked to Hannibal questioningly and had to ask, "Why's that?"

"Because people who die accidentally, the accident is so sudden, they don't know they're dead, they think they're still alive, they can't accept the fact that they're dead, so it's harder for them to move on."

"How would you know that?" B.A. wanted to know.

"I have my ways," Hannibal replied elusively, "Some ghosts though, they don't linger, they have a specific purpose and once they serve it, they are gone. Usually it's to let their families know that they have died, if they're off somewhere, on the other side of the world or off on a ship or something like that, they appear somewhere else at their time of death as an omen, to let the family know, eventually news of the death reaches them hours or days later, by which time they've already known it. Those generally _don't_ make a habit of coming back, _they_ don't haunt houses."

B.A. sneered at Hannibal suspiciously, and asked, "You really believe in ghosts, Hannibal?"

"B.A.," Hannibal clapped a gloved hand on the large Sergeant's shoulder and told him, "I have a feeling that before our time here is over, _you_ will too."

"Oh brother," B.A. grumbled. "So what do you think is _really_ going on around here?"

"Well I have a feeling if we can find out if anybody else _was_ murdered in this house previously, we could get a good idea," Hannibal answered.

"Why?" B.A. wanted to know, "What's that got to do with this?"

"Well, B.A.," Hannibal calmly explained, "It's just possible that if there _was_ another murder committed here, it may have been over something that somebody wanted and never managed to recover, and if it was, that might be what they're doing now, trying to drive this nice lady out to search the house without interruption and find it."

"You really believe that?" B.A. asked.

Hannibal shrugged and replied, "You got a better idea?"

* * *

><p>"Amy, <em>get<em> in here," Hannibal held the front door open and called out to the woman outside.

B.A. turned from where he stood in the dining room checking along the floorboards for anything unusual and fought back a giggle. Evidently other people _knew_ about the house's history, and they believed it.

"Get…_get in here_, Amy," Hannibal told the young reporter, "If you don't, I'm going to come out there, put you over my knee and spank you."

"I'm willing to take my chances," they heard Amy call back from out on the sidewalk.

Hannibal bared his slightly gritted teeth and ordered in his best D.I. tone, "_Get_ in here, Miss Allen."

Slowly, Amy came into view as she stepped up the porch steps, and came _up_ to the front doorway, but that was where she stopped.

"You can do better than that," Hannibal told her.

Amy stood straight, held her arms stiff at her sides, looked straight ahead and said in a neutral tone, "I'll stay right here, you can send Mrs. Hinckley and her bags _out_."

By now B.A. was giggling and snorting, he pulled himself together and said to the young woman, "Come on, Amy, we' all in here, ain't nothing happened to us."

"And nothing's happened to Mrs. Hinckley and she's been here for 12 years," Hannibal pointed out.

Amy stepped over the threshold and looked around the house suspiciously like she was expecting something to jump out at her or the chandelier to come crashing down on her.

"I thought you news reporters were supposed to be the bold and fearless types," Hannibal said, "Travel the world to places unknown, stay in God forsaken lands to deal with all sorts of perils imaginable."

"That's for the job," Amy replied, "_This_ isn't."

"No," Hannibal shook his head in agreement, "This isn't for a job, this is to help out a friend, which should take higher priority than your work."

"Hey Amy," B.A. said, "What you so jumpy about?"

"I spent my whole life growing up hearing about what happened in this house," Amy told him, "Scared the hell out of me as a kid, still does now."

"What did _you_ hear about the place?" he asked her.

"We all grew up hearing about the young woman who was murdered here," Amy said, "The story always was that she was hacked to pieces and they found parts of her all over the house."

B.A. felt his eyes open wider as he glared suspiciously to Hannibal, who had neglected to mention that little detail.

They heard the clatter of a pair of shoes coming down the stairs, Amy craned her neck back and looked up, the expression on her face looking like she was expecting to see a ghost. Instead it was only Maude coming down the stairs carrying her suitcase.

"I think I got everything packed that I'll need," she said to Hannibal as she stepped off the bottom stair and crossed over on the hall floor, "But I still don't know about…"

"Maude," Hannibal said to direct her attention up off of her suitcase and to the woman in the house, "This is our friend, Amy Allen, she's going to be taking you to the motel for the night."

Maude held her bag against her side and held out her free hand to the young woman and said to her, "Pleasure to meet you, dear, I don't get many visitors up here."

"No…I would guess not," Amy responded as she pulled herself together. She looked around the elegantly decorated house and commented, "This is a very, lovely place you have here."

"I like it," Maude told her.

"You two really ought to get going," Hannibal said through lightly gritted teeth to make sure Amy took the hint.

"Let me help you with your bags, Mrs. Hinckley," Amy said as she took the travel bag from her.

"That's all I've got," Maude said, "For two days I won't be needing much."

"Well my car's right outside," Amy took Maude by the hand and led her to the door.

"Yes," Hannibal replied, "And you can take my word for it, it runs smooth and purrs like a kitten."

Amy paused by Hannibal and showed him her pointed nails and subtly warned him, "You smash up my car _one_ more time, Hannibal Smith, and _this_ kitten's gonna tear you to ribbons."

"Your threats have no effect on _me_," Hannibal coyly remarked.

"House must be lead lined," Amy sarcastically responded as she joined Maude and headed out the front door.

"Well we're off," Maude half turned and called out, "Goodbye, Wilfred, see you in a couple days!"

Amy turned and looked back with wide questioning eyes, Hannibal just shook his head and gestured that Amy got the point to keep on going and not ask any questions.

"Never a dull moment," Hannibal said as he shut the door behind the two women.

"So now what?" B.A. asked, "_What_ are we looking for?"

"Anything that would explain _why_ somebody would want to gain access to this house, and anything that would explain _how_ they're getting access to it," Hannibal said, "I suspect more than just those notes have gotten _in_ here recently without that woman's knowledge."

"When're Faceman and that fool Murdock getting back here?" B.A. asked Hannibal.

"Hmm, good question," Hannibal looked to the clock and scratched his chin, "They've been gone for a while, I wonder what the holdup is?"

* * *

><p>After checking with town hall, the local newspaper and the department of records, Murdock had insisted that they stop off at the supermarket. Face didn't know what for, but he knew he'd never hear the end of it if they didn't, so they did. Once in the store, he lost Murdock and had to check all aisles to find him, and he finally found Murdock with two large bags of apples and several assorted bags of candy.<p>

"Murdock," he said, idly glancing through the contents of the shopping cart, "This is a nice touch but nobody comes to Mrs. Hinckley's house as it is, I doubt there are going to be any trick-or-treaters there tomorrow night."

"Well that just shows what you know," Murdock replied in a smart aleck tone, "It just so happens this is not _for_ the trick-or-treaters."

"Who then?" Face asked.

"It's for the ghosts," Murdock told him.

Face did a double take, "The…the ghosts?"

Murdock nodded, "You know, Halloween was thought to be the one day of the year that the dead could rise from the grave and return to their homes, so people put out good food so the spirits would take it and enjoy, and pass over their homes without causing trouble for anyone."

"You really believe that stuff?" Face asked.

"Oh absolutely!" Murdock insisted, "You know there are some people who firmly believe there are some ghosts who solely walk the earth _to_ eat, like that green blob in the Ghostbusters movie."

"Huh," Face said, "When they say gluttony's a deadly sin, they ain't kidding, are they?"

Murdock ignored his question and instead looked at the bins of candy sticking out of a small side shelf and he said to Face, "The one thing I wonder is…_do_ you think ghosts like candy?"

"Huh?" Face wasn't even sure what the question was.

"I mean ghosts who only died recently, they'd _know_ what it is, so they might like it," Murdock said, "But if ghosts return every year for Halloween, then that means you've got spirits of people thousands of years old coming back too, they never had candy, would they know what it is? What if they don't like it? If they _didn't_ like the food offered for them, would they curse the family anyway? You know…it might not be a bad idea to find some stones for tomorrow."

"Stones?" Face parroted cluelessly, "Eggs aren't bad enough?"

"No, I don't mean to throw at people," Murdock said, "It's an old Celtic tradition to protect against evil spirits. You get a stone for each person in the house, and mark each one differently, then toss them in a fire, and if they stay _in_ the fire until it burns out, you're safe for the year, if one of the stones is missing from the fire when it's out, then that person is supposed to die within the year."

"Uh…" Face thought about it for a minute and all he could come up with was, "Let me throw my own in, okay, Murdock?" He wasn't sure he believed any of this, but the last thing he needed was the overzealous pilot to spike his stone like a football and have it bounce clear out of the fire.

"Murdock," Face thought of something else, "Do you _really_ think the house is haunted?"

"I think we're going to find out real soon," Murdock said as an answer.

Face noted the time and realized it'd be dark in just a few hours, he guessed the crazy pilot was right. He just hoped they didn't find anything they might regret.

"Hmmm," Murdock ogled a particular candy in the bins and pulled one out, making sure none of the store employees were watching, tore off the wrapper and put it in his mouth to test it. His eyes bulged and he spat it out and told Face, "Forget that one, the ghosts would kill us _all_ if we gave them _that_ as an offering." He nodded towards the next aisle and said, "Come on, Faceman, let's go find some Twinkies."

"Why not?" Face asked, being left behind, standing in the dust so to speak, "5,000 year old ghost comes to the house and eats a Twinkie." He slowly started to walk off after Murdock and said to himself, "We won't be murdered in our beds…we're all gonna be turned into kumquats, _that's_ what we're gonna do." Then Face realized he was talking to himself, and he started running to the next aisle. "Murdock!"


	5. Chapter 5

Something was wrong. _Something_ was wrong.

Women were supposed to have some kind of corner on the intuition market, but right now Hannibal felt he could give every last woman on the planet a run for her money. He simultaneously felt like he'd been hit in the back of the head with a 2 by 4, and felt a sickening pain in the pit of his stomach. Whatever it was, he couldn't shake it.

Face and Murdock had gotten back from their errands just a few minutes ago, Face hadn't even had time to tell Hannibal what he'd found out from the public records about the house. Everything was fine, nobody had followed them. Amy had called from the motel when she and Mrs. Hinckley arrived and all was well there too. So _why_ was Hannibal suddenly getting the sinking sensation that something was horribly wrong? He tried to brush off the feeling, tried to convince himself that he was just being paranoid, ridiculous, making something out of nothing. But no…

He'd grown up on all the classic old movies, and plenty of not-so-classics, but out of the blue, very clearly he remembered 'Double Indemnity', remembered Edward G. Robinson's character, Keyes, and remembered Keyes's 'little man' in his stomach that always alerted him when something was wrong, and something _was_ wrong here, Hannibal was sure of it, he just wasn't sure _what_ it was. There wasn't enough Alka-Seltzer in the world to convince him that this was just a gnawing bout of indigestion. All the same, he didn't let on to his men that anything was wrong, how could he when he couldn't prove he wasn't just going crazy? Or maybe already _was_ crazy and just didn't realize it until now. He went over everything in his head again, trying to find a piece that didn't fit: Face and Murdock were back – check; B.A. had been at the house with him this whole time – check; Amy and Mrs. Hinckley were at a motel out of the town limits under an assumed name where nobody could find them – check. That took care of everybody he immediately knew.

And suddenly, an idea came to him, and he didn't like it. He turned to the others and, letting nothing betray his feigned composure, told them, "I'm going to go into town and call Jerry and let him know I won't be in for shooting tomorrow, I'm going to find a payphone to call him from because incase the army would be bugging Jerry's phone, we don't need them coming here. I'll be back in a little bit. You guys lay low, don't draw attention to yourselves."

"Who're you telling?" Face asked, feeling it was a _very_ fair question given he was sandwiched between a man whose imagination was on the warpath and intermingled with reality far too often, and a man who for reasons unknown insisted on walking around in 50 pounds of gold and a Mohawk, to say nothing of the shiny metallic sneakers he had on today.

If they actually believed anything Hannibal had told them, he didn't know, and in this moment he didn't care. He had to get out of the house. He had to find out…

* * *

><p>"You got the worst security in this hospital, you know that, Decker?" Hannibal asked as he entered the colonel's hospital room.<p>

Decker was laying in the bed unresponsive, maybe even unconscious. To the untrained eye he looked like he was sleeping, but Hannibal knew better. He went over to the hospital bed and commented, "You sure look different out of uniform, Decker, how 'bout that? You even got hair. Maybe not for long, but…"

Decker slowly took in a large inhale notable by the movement under the bed sheet, then opened his eyes and said to Hannibal, "The one upside of getting hernia surgery that I could possibly foresee was getting a vacation from _you_, Smith, what're you doing here?"

"I was in the neighborhood," Hannibal answered casually, "How're you?"

"What do _you_ think?"

"You don't look well," Hannibal told him.

Decker looked through the corners of his eyes over towards the wall, without looking at Hannibal he told the Colonel, "I have news for you."

"What?"

Decker's eyes rolled back in his head and it looked like he'd passed out, instead, he told Hannibal in a low, groggy voice, "Someone new is after you."

"You don't say," Hannibal replied.

"The Army decided to assign the job of catching you to someone else while I was in recovery," Decker said.

"How'd you find out?"

"Crane," Decker answered, "He stopped by earlier to inform me…he at least understands loyalty."

"A concept completely foreign to our esteemed military," Hannibal remarked, "So who's the new guy?"

Decker's eyes squeezed shut momentarily and he looked like he'd just been tapped on the chest with an ice pick, "You'd never guess."

"Anyone I know?"

Decker weakly shook his head, "The Army seems to be running out of Colonels on hand, so they promoted someone else for the job."

"Who?" Hannibal asked.

"A Captain Stewart, he ran around with Lynch when he was trailing you a few years ago. He could very well be smart enough to put the pieces together on everything including your pilot, he's certainly had long enough to do it."

Hannibal felt his eyebrows move upwards. "You're serious," he said in surprise. The part that really unnerved him was how certain Decker seemed to be that the A-Team was truly in danger of being caught this time.

Decker's teeth gritted together and his lips drew back as he breathed harder. "Have you _ever_ known me to have a sense of humor, Smith?"

Hannibal felt his eyes open wider to match his eyebrows. Something was wrong with Decker and it was becoming more obvious with every passing minute. The man laying in the bed was fighting for his life just to breathe. All at once Hannibal knew _why_ he had to come out here.

He ran to the door, threw it open and called out in the hall, "We need a doctor in here NOW!" Skidding on his heel, he turned and ran back towards the bed and told the colonel, "They're gonna fix you up, Decker, you'll see, and I'm gonna be right here until they _do_."

Decker groaned and managed to get out a disgruntled, "Oh _that_ makes me feel better."

A few of the staff of the hospital came running in to see what was the matter. In all the confusion, nobody thought to question what Hannibal was doing there. Decker was wheeled to the ER, Hannibal followed, stopping only long enough to don the scrubs needed to get into the room. A chest x-ray was ordered and when it came through, it revealed that one of Decker's lungs had collapsed, what the attending doctor referred to as an unfortunate post-surgery complication.

"Is he going to be alright?" Hannibal asked once the diagnosis was made.

"We need to draw the extra air out so he can breathe, but in spite of how bad it looks, I'd clarify this as being a relatively _minor_ case."

"There're varying levels for lung collapse?" Hannibal asked.

"There are when it's a difference of needing surgery or not, of needing a tube inserted in his chest or not," the doctor told him, "We'll keep him under observation while we treat him to make sure no other complications ensue, but I doubt he'll be requiring anymore surgery."

"Maybe if somebody would've seen him three weeks ago when he first _got_ his hernia he wouldn't be in this mess now," Hannibal told the doctor sharply.

"And you are?" the doctor asked.

Without skipping a beat Hannibal answered, prepared, "I'm his brother." Because he knew he was in the wrong getup to even think about trying the old 'he's my husband' gag.

* * *

><p>While Hannibal was gone, B.A., Face and Murdock made short work of the rest of the house, but given the term 'anything suspicious' was so vague, they had a hard time knowing what they were even supposed to be looking for. Overall the whole house looked very normal, like a very normal person lived there.<p>

"Check the house for anything unusual he says," Face grumbled as he searched through Maude's bedroom, and felt like a pervert for doing it, coming into a nice older lady's room and going through all her belongings, "Of all the…"

He got down on his knees and crawled over to the bed and hiked the bedspread up so he could see under the bedstead, and saw a face looking back at him.

"AHHHHHHHHH!"

"Murdock!" Face shot up on his knees, "What do you think you're doing? You trying to scare me to death?"

The pilot popped up on the other side of the bed and said, "I was looking to see if there was anything under the bed, or any_one_."

"Why did we ever agree to take this case?" Face asked himself, "Why? Why? Why?"

"We didn't, Hannibal agreed on our behalf," Murdock reminded him.

"Yeah and right about now Hannibal's even crazier than you," Face said as he got to his feet and went over to Mrs. Hinckley's vanity, "Tearing this house apart from top to bottom, looking for _ghosts_, of all the ridiculous things he's _ever_ had us do, this takes the cake."

"How 'bout that time he had us searching the city for garbage?" Murdock reminded him, "Filthiest garbage we could find, you remember?"

"I remember, and right now I'd rather be stealing garbage than going through everything in this house trying to find something that doesn't belong that I don't even know what it is!"

"How about the time he had you pretend to be his slightly retarded nephew, Harold?" Murdock asked.

"That was _embarrassing_, but I could deal with that better than this," Face told him.

"Oh yeah?" Murdock asked, "How 'bout the time we had to go to that Wild West show and you had to dress up as a rodeo clown? You know that warn't exactly one of your finer moments with the ladies…and how 'bout the horse liniment?"

"I get the point, Murdock!" Face replied, "But this still tops all of that. You tell me, how're we supposed to know something that's not right when we see it?"

"Well…" Murdock seemed to think on it.

"Why am I even asking you?" Face asked sharply, "You don't even know what _is_ right when you see it."

"Hey!"

"I don't like this!" Face said as he slammed a drawer shut on the vanity, "I don't know what's going on, I don't know what we're supposed to find, I don't know what's keeping Hannibal, I don't like any of this. The whole thing feels like we're just stepping into a trap of some kind."

"I think that's just your imagination, Face," Murdock spoke up.

Face stopped in his tracks and did a wide eyed double take, "Well if that ain't the big fat pot calling the kettle _broken_! _My_ imagination?"

A sudden cold chill shot through the room and both men felt pins and needles running from the back of their heads clear down their backs as a high pitched blood curdling shrill scream filled the room.

"What was _that_?" Murdock asked when the noise passed and the chilly breeze had died down.

"Nothing, I'm imagining things!" Face replied, sounding borderline hysterical.

"Faceman," Murdock said, "You think that could be that 'anything unusual' Hannibal was talking about?"

"Whether it is or it isn't, it _is_," Face told him as he headed towards the door, "It's unusual enough for me and I'm ready to get out of here."

Face threw open the door, and let out an unusually high pitched scream himself as he saw someone standing in the doorway, only realizing a second later that it was B.A.

"What're you fools doing in here?" B.A. wanted to know.

"B.A., didn't you hear that?" Murdock asked.

"Hear _what_?" B.A. asked.

"You didn't hear that?" Face asked, breathing as hard now as he did anytime he had to run Hannibal's obstacle course.

"I didn't hear nothing," B.A. said, "What're you two jabbering about? Hear _what_?"

"Nothing," Face said again over ragged huffs and puffs, "I'm imagining things!"

"Face, be realistic," Murdock said, "Your imagination isn't that good. You should use mine, it's stronger."

B.A. smacked Murdock upside the head and asked him, "What're you jibber-jabbering about, you crazy fool?"

"B.A., you didn't just hear somebody scream?" Face asked.

"Only you, sucker," B.A. told him.

"How could you _not_ hear it?" Face marched over to the Sergeant and just about got in his face until he remembered B.A. outweighed him by nearly 100 pounds, doubly so when accounting for the gold, and plenty meaner, so instead he padded over to Murdock, grabbed the Captain by the arms and said to him, "Murdock, I can't be going insane."

"Well Faceguy," Murdock said to him, trying to sound assuring, "If you _are_, then that must mean _I'm_ going sane, and if I'm sane and I heard what we just heard, then we're in serious trouble."

"We already got trouble," B.A. told them, "It's called working with a couple of crazy fools like you two."

"B.A.," Face said desperately, "Are you _sure_ we've been over the whole house and there's no way anybody could be in here?"

"Positive," B.A. answered, "If anybody _was_ here who shouldn't be, we'd have known it by now, and _then_ I'd break their skull."

"Good thinking, Big Guy," Murdock said.

"Shut up you crazy fool," B.A. told him as he walked out of the room.

Once he was gone, the Lieutenant and the Captain looked at each other in puzzlement.

"You think we're going crazy?" Face asked.

"Well I know _I_ am," Murdock replied, "But…"

From somewhere up on the second floor of the house, they heard a door creaking and then heard it slam shut at full force, and the noise was sudden enough and unexpected enough that both men jumped and yelped.

"B.A.?" Face called out into the hall.

"What?" they heard the Sergeant's voice boom up from the bottom of the stairs on the first floor.

Murdock and Face looked to each other again, eyes wide, ready to jump out of their skin.

"Mama!" Murdock wailed.

"This can't be real," Face said as they walked out of the bedroom and out into the hall, "It's got to be somebody's idea of a prank, it's got to be…"

"Face!" Murdock called after him, "Look out!"

Face turned to see what it was, and felt like he _had_ to be dreaming. He saw an axe flying through the air and coming straight at him, he fell to the floor and it zipped right past where his head would've been and then fell to the floor.

"Let's get out of here!" Face told Murdock as he got to his feet, "I don't know what's going on, but I don't think I want to find out either."

"Right behind you!" Murdock told him, but he took it a step further by going over to the banister and jumping over it and making a crash landing on the downstairs hall floor.

Outside the house, Hannibal had just pulled up and gotten out of the van; returning from the hospital once he was sure that Decker would be more closely monitored than before lest any further complications ensue when nobody was looking. The whole ordeal had left him feeling completely exhausted, and he would've liked nothing better than to just fall into bed and go to sleep, but he knew there was work to be done inside. He still had to get a report back from Face on the house's history. He was just making his way up the sidewalk when he heard people screaming inside, followed by the door opening, and Face running out.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"This place _is_ haunted!" Face said as he ran past the Colonel.

"Not only that!" Murdock added as he ran out behind Face and nearly knocked Hannibal down, "It's got _ghosts_!"

"Funny," Hannibal said nonchalantly, "I thought _that_ was the idea."


	6. Chapter 6

"Somebody screaming and somebody throwing axes through the air?" Hannibal asked as they reentered the house.

"That's right," Murdock said.

"B.A., did you see anything?" Hannibal asked the Sergeant.

"I ain't seen nothing, Hannibal," B.A. said, "These two suckers' just crazy."

"That's a double negative, B.A.," Murdock pointed out, "Inferring that you did in _fact_ see something."

"I told you I didn't see nothing," B.A. told him threateningly, "You got me?"

"Yes," Murdock hung his head low in defeat.

"Alright then," Hannibal said as he rested by the foot of the stairs, "So where's the axe?"

"Upstairs," Face pointed.

Hannibal went up to check. The others stayed at the bottom of the stairs and waited, and listened to the Colonel's heavy footsteps as he moved around up on the second floor. After a while, he braced himself against the banister and called down, "Lieutenant, come up here."

Face knew that tone and he didn't like it. He nervously climbed the stairs and looked around to see what it was Hannibal was seeing, and saw that it was nothing, _no_ axe to be found anywhere.

"It was right over there," Face pointed.

"That could very well be, Face, but it isn't there now," Hannibal replied, "Now are you sure you guys went over the whole house and didn't find anything?"

"Positive," Face told him.

"Absolutely," Murdock said as he came up the stairs towards them and told Hannibal, "We searched every nook and cranny and didn't find anything…and I'm not even sure what those are."

Hannibal looked around the upstairs again briefly, as if expecting something to come flying out at him now that he was here.

"Well," he said, "I don't see anything." He turned to Face and asked him, "What'd you find out about the house?"

"Well you were right," Face said, "More than one person was murdered here."

"Oh brother," B.A. grumbled as he joined the rest of the guys upstairs.

"Back in 1957, a guy by the name of Martin Harrow lived here, was about 35 years old, no wife, not much family, not much is known about him except that he had a couple prior arrests and was the suspect in a bank robbery, but nobody was able to prove anything against him, nor were they able to recover the money."

"How much?" Hannibal asked.

"A cool half million," Face answered.

Murdock whistled in an impressed manner.

"The police search the house of course," Hannibal said.

"Of course," Face said, "Tore the place apart just like we did, and never found anything. Couple months after the cops stopped hassling him, he was found one night sprawled out just inside the front door, stabbed clear through to the heart."

Murdock swallowed hard and the _gulp_ in his Adam's apple was audible to everyone.

"Did the cops have any leads on who might be responsible?" Hannibal asked.

"Nope," Face answered, "The best they could figure was that he had a partner or partner_s_ who helped in the robbery and they killed him either so they would have one less person to split it with, or because _he_ was holding onto it and they killed him for it. 30 years later the case is stone cold and no further ideas in the matter."

Hannibal nodded slowly and took this in, and then asked Face, "What else?"

"What more do you want?" Face asked, "The house is pretty old, it was built back in the 1870s."

"Funny, it don't look its age," Murdock said.

"Shut up you crazy fool," B.A. warned him.

"There _was_ another report about a couple of people being murdered here back around the 1890s but there weren't a lot of details to find on the case. Just an older couple about in their 60s, found bludgeoned to death one Sunday morning."

"Any idea with what?" Hannibal asked.

"No," Face answered, "Does it matter?"

Hannibal shrugged.

"And no arrests, right?"

Face shook his head, "Not a one…this house is apparently the cold case capital of California, anybody dies here, the authorities will _never_ figure out who did it."

"_That's_ comforting," Hannibal dryly commented.

Hannibal felt something jabbing him in the shoulder that might as well have been a metal rod. He turned and saw it was B.A. poking him.

"Something I can do for you, B.A.?"

"Amy said the girl murdered here was hacked to pieces and found all over the house, is that true?" B.A. asked.

"_What_?" Face yelped in disbelief, them having been absent during that conversation.

"Of course not," Hannibal replied in a 'don't be ridiculous' tone, "Allison Bregovy's murder _was_ an all-out bloodbath, but she _was_ still in one piece when her body was found."

"_Was_ an axe the weapon of choice in her murder?" Face asked.

Hannibal opened his mouth to respond, then thought about what Face was saying. "You think what happened up here was…"

"Hannibal," Murdock seemed to tune into the same frequency of Face's mental process and said to the Colonel, "_Is_ it possible that whoever killed her is one of the ghosts in this house too?"

"Anything's possible," Hannibal answered, "Especially given they never found out who killed her."

"Her fiancée, whatever happened to him?" Face asked.

Hannibal tried to think back, but he concluded disappointedly, "I don't know, I don't think anybody in the area heard of him again after he was taken off the suspect list."

"What was his name?" Face asked.

Hannibal tried to remember. "Martin Strauss, I think, he came from a well-to-do family, they firmly believed his innocence of course."

Face let out a disgruntled sigh and said, "Well, back to the newspaper."

"I'll go with you!" Murdock zipped after him.

Face stopped at the head of the stairs and turned towards the pilot and said, "Murdock, I doubt you can help me."

"I don't care," Murdock said, "Anything to get out of this house."

"Good point," Face replied.

Hannibal turned to B.A. and they both just shook their heads.

"What do you make of it, B.A.?" Hannibal asked.

"Hey Hannibal, we all known each other a long time, Murdock might get nuttier than usual around Halloween but Faceman never does, and you know that."

"Right, so what're we supposed to take away from that?" Hannibal asked, "That something _did_ try to kill them? That they _did_ hear someone screaming?"

"I don't know," B.A. said, "All I know is I ain't heard nothing and I ain't seen nothing."

"Yeah well," Hannibal scratched the top of his head, "Ghosts don't make a habit of showing themselves to _everybody_, otherwise there'd be no debate about their existence. I wonder…"

* * *

><p>"Martin Strauss disappeared and has not been seen or heard from since 1942," Face told Hannibal when they returned early that evening, "His family never found out what happened to him, they suspected he fell victim to foul play but once again, nobody could find anything, nobody could prove anything."<p>

"It's almost like this house is a long distance portal to the Bermuda triangle," Murdock commented over dinner.

"Or something," Hannibal added, "Anybody who gets involved with this house either gets murdered, disappears, or…oh well, I guess Maude should be grateful ol' Wilfred simply passed away."

"Or did he?" Face asked.

"Ohhh," Murdock groaned and rubbed his head, "I can't take another unsolved mystery rolled up into this mess."

"So what do we do now, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.

Hannibal merely shrugged and told them, "What we must do, stay here for the night and see what happens. We know for fact that somebody is trying to scare Mrs. Hinckley out of here, the question is why? What's somebody want to get _in_ to this house that most people in the neighborhood won't touch with a 10 foot pole for?"

"Try and find the bank money?" Murdock asked.

"The cops couldn't find it the first time," Face said, "And if the robbers had been looking for it, either they got it or if they _couldn't_ find it, then _nobody_ could."

"So," Hannibal said, "If nobody's looking for the stolen money, what _are_ they hoping to find in this spooky old house?"

"It beats me," Face remarked.

"That's what we've gotta find out," Hannibal told them, "Because whoever it is, if they _are_ going to make a move, it'll be sometime between tonight and tomorrow night, I'm certain of it."

"Oh joy," Face dryly replied, "There's also the sleeping arrangement matter to figure out, I don't feel right about staying in Mrs. Hinckley's bedroom."

"There are other rooms in this house, right?" Hannibal asked.

"Yeah, two guests."

"That settles it then," Hannibal said, "B.A. and I'll take one room, you and Murdock take the other."

"Why do _I_ always have to bunk with Murdock?" Face wanted to know.

"Because I said so," Hannibal told him, "_That's_ why."

Face grumbled under his breath.

"I hate to be the bearer of further bad news," Hannibal addressed the three men and told them, "But I found out that Decker's been temporarily replaced and we've got somebody new looking for us."

"Who now?" Face asked.

"Captain Stewart, he used to be an aide to Lynch when he chased us all over the country," Hannibal said, "Now this is the Captain's first time in the spotlight, we'll just have to see how he does, how competent he proves to be…all the same, I figure if we lay low here for the next couple days, we'll be alright. The MPs aren't dumb enough to come to _this_ house and look for us."

* * *

><p>It was no stretch of the imagination to say that Hannibal Smith could be wrong; it was no exaggeration either to say he <em>was<em> wrong quite frequently, there was a reason his plans never worked out as expected and only _just_ worked. As such, it turned out that there _was_ an MP dumb enough to come to Mrs. Hinckley's house to look for them: Mike Lafferty, a young rookie new on the job, a bit full of himself, gone out on his own to scout the local area for any sign of the A-Team and spotted their van at the curb to the house. Without a sound, he crept up to the house and peered in through the window; a slat in the drawn blind had caught on the one above it, giving him just enough space to glance in, without anybody realizing they were being watched.

Indeed it was the A-Team: John 'Hannibal' Smith, Bosco 'B.A.' Baracus, and Templeton 'Faceman' Peck, there was a fourth man with them but Mike wasn't sure who it was. It didn't matter, all 3 members of the A-Team were together in one spot, this couldn't be anymore perfect.

Lafferty backed away from the window and got back to his car and got on the radio to newly promoted Colonel Stewart.

"_Lafferty, where the hell are you?"_

"Colonel, I have good news," Mike said into his radio, "I've found the A-Team."

There was a brief silence over the radio waves before Stewart reported back, "What did you say?"

"The A-Team, Colonel, they're holed up in a brick house on Elmhurst Lane."

There was another pause before Stewart asked the overeager MP, "The Harrow House?"

"Ah…I beg your pardon, sir?"

"Never mind, what're they doing there?"

"…I really don't know, Colonel. They're in the house with somebody else, it looks like they're discussing something."

"You keep an eye on them," Stewart ordered him, "If they leave, you find out _where_, we'll be there within the half hour, and if you lose sight of them, so help me Lafferty, I'll bust you down to a _gnat_."

"Yes sir, Colonel," Lafferty absentmindedly saluted.

The MP got off the radio and went back towards the house and looked in the window again; the A-Team was gone and the room was completely empty. Lafferty knew they hadn't come outside, so they must've gone upstairs. He decided that before Colonel Stewart and the rest got out there, he'd make _sure_ that the A-Team didn't get a chance to leave. Equally absently, he reached for his sidearm on instinct, once he was in the house, he'd make sure they didn't try making a break for it. He'd heard a lot about the A-Team during his short military career, and if there was one thing he _did_ know, the great John Smith would _not_ risk the lives of his men to make a point; he was going to make sure they had no _choice_ but to stick around until the cavalry arrived.


	7. Chapter 7

"You really think somebody's going to come in here in the night, don't you, Hannibal?" Face asked as they got ready for an early night, because they figured they wouldn't be getting much sleep in the hours to come.

"I do and I think it's going to be sooner than we think," Hannibal replied.

"Why don't we wait until they do that, then hogtie them and ask _them_ why they're doing it instead of trying to figure it out ourselves?" Face asked.

"Where would the fun be in that?" Hannibal asked casually.

Face grumbled something and said to the Colonel, "Quite frankly I don't consider spending the night in a haunted house to be much fun in and of itself."

"That's your problem, Face, you have no imagination," Hannibal said.

"No, Hannibal, what I was today was nearly scalped!" Face told him.

"Then why didn't we find an axe?" Hannibal asked, "Have you _ever_ heard of ghosts tidying up after themselves?"

"I suppose not," Face gave in, "But I know what I saw."

"And you saw what you saw what you saw when you saw it," Hannibal replied, "Yes I already saw that movie, Face, now give it a rest will you? Go to sleep."

"I'm not sleeping with you," Face told him and moved for the door, "I'm going to go stay with Murdock, _he_ at least is making sense right now." He stopped in his tracks as he realized what had just come out of his mouth and he asked himself, "What am I saying?"

Still, he couldn't deny that Murdock was the only one who also understood what was going on, so he went across the hall to the other guest room and climbed into bed with Murdock.

"Hey Faceman," Murdock turned towards him, "You think the ghosts are gonna come back?"

"I don't know, Murdock, I hope not, but right now I'm really too tired to care," Face told him, "All I want to do is get some sleep."

"Yeah," Murdock nodded, "Yeah, you're right, all the same, I put some food out incase they get hungry in the night, I hope there's some truth to that legend of they leave you alone if you feed them."

Face pulled his head up off the pillow and looked over at the pilot in a very confused expression, which was completely lost on the captain. Face just shook his head and flopped back against the pillow.

"Goodnight, Face."

"Goodnight, Murdock, though I doubt it'll be long."

* * *

><p>Murdock looked to the clock on the wall. They'd gotten back late, eaten late, and now were going to bed early, it was going on 10 o' clock. He shrugged to himself, turned over and tried to get comfortable. Though to save time and confusion, they'd decided to leave the lights on, figuring this would not deter anybody trying to get in since they were expecting to find an older woman here home alone; if Hannibal was right, and anybody <em>did<em> try breaking in, they were going to be in for a rude surprise.

So far Lafferty had come across a minor obstacle, both doors and all the downstairs windows seemed to be locked. Now, it wouldn't have been anything for him to kick the door open and charge in, but that would've been downright stupid and given the A-Team a chance to get the drop on _him_. Instead he was going to get into this house and take _them_ by surprise, and he couldn't do that if the house sounded like the 5th Marine Division was tramping through the downstairs of the house. He tried every window, intent on finding one he could jimmy loose like a baby tooth. Finally, he got one that wasn't as perfectly set in its frame as the others were. It took a lot of work to quietly maneuver it, but he finally got the catch to release and pushed the window up from the outside so he could climb through it to the inside.

So far so good, he couldn't hear anything. Still, it occurred to him that the A-Team might've taken precautions and set a booby trap. So he tested first by picking up a stick laying on the ground and sticking it in through the window, running it along the wall to check for any trip wires or anything like that. Nothing. Good. He discarded the stick and climbed up into the dining room through the window; the whole downstairs was pitch dark, but Lafferty intended to use that to his advantage, he would just have to be as clever as the A-Team. Strike that, he would have to be _even_ smarter than they were.

It seemed like a good guess that there was only _one_ set of stairs leading up to the second floor, and those would be at the _front_ of the house, so, being very careful not to bump into any of the furniture, Lafferty tiptoed around the table and chairs and moved toward the front hall. His first problem was that transition from the carpeted dining room floor, to the creaky linoleum floor of the hall. He pressed himself tight against the wall, listening for any noises from upstairs, but there were none. Good. They hadn't heard him, they didn't know. He stepped carefully and lightly, trying not to disturb anymore floorboards under the linoleum. Another wrong step and another creak, and once again he paused and listened, and once again, there was nothing. To his great frustration, the stairs were not carpeted, but he was relieved as he got up on the first step that they didn't creak. Or if they did, he was just stepping in the right spots, and he would have to continue to do so the whole way up.

It felt like an eternity, but after a while, Lafferty had felt himself reach the top of the stairs, so far this was going off without a hitch. But he should've remembered, when things seemed too good to be true, they usually were, and when things went very well, something was _bound_ to go wrong, though he could never have anticipated what did. He moved to step up onto the second floor but instead felt the floor underneath him fall away and he too was falling. No, not falling, he realized he was _sliding_ down the stairs, and he skidded clear across the hall floor when he reached the bottom and stopped when he bumped into a wall, though it hadn't made much noise and didn't bring anyone running to investigate.

The stairs gave way to a slide? What the hell was going on around here? Lafferty crawled back over towards the stairs and reached out to touch them, they were stairs again. He tried looking to the top in the dark, and he said to himself there was something screwy going on around here.

Unfortunately for Mike Lafferty, he hadn't thought to close the window behind him when he came into the house, so, a black cat out for a late night stroll had taken it as an open invitation and leapt in, and was quietly padding through the house exploring. And it just so happened to come to a small stop right by the bottom stair, which was right where Lafferty stepped when he tried to climb the stairs again.

"RRRRRRREEEEEOOOOOOOWWWWWWRRRRRRR!"

"AHHHHHHHHH!"

"Ahhhhhh!" Face yelped upstairs as he shot up in bed at the sudden noise.

"Ahhhhhh!" Murdock parroted as he too shot up, and looked around the room, "What's going on?"

Across the hall, the other two occupants of the other guest room were also getting up.

"Did you hear something?" Hannibal asked.

"Yeah but I don't know what," B.A. answered.

"Well let's go see," Hannibal said.

* * *

><p>While the four of them tore out of bed and got together in the hall to find out what was going on, Lafferty, still not sure of what had happened, had quickly backed away from the staircase and moved back towards the dining room to figure out what to do now. He had no idea where anything was or even much idea of where he was going, but he felt himself bump against a door that was open, and he fell in, and then to his horror, the door closed on him.<p>

The upstairs lights came on and the A-Team came charging down the stairs to see who was in the house. It was to their disappointment that they gave the whole downstairs the onceover and couldn't find sign of anybody, except a cat.

"How'd that thing get in here?" Face asked when they found it in the kitchen, frantically licking its tail that was missing some fur from it.

"I don't know, but it's cute, can I keep it?" Murdock asked.

"There's a window open in the dining room," Hannibal said, "We had this whole place locked up, didn't we?"

"I think so," Face said.

"Me too," Murdock agreed.

"Then somebody _is_ in the house," B.A. said, "Cuz that cat sure didn't let itself in here."

"Oh how would you know?" Murdock asked B.A., "Ain't you ever heard of cat burglars?"

"Hannibal!"

"Murdock, don't antagonize him, we're too tired for it," Hannibal told him.

"So now what do we do?" Face asked.

"We'll simply have to check the whole house from top to bottom," Hannibal said, "And we'd better split up to cover more ground, if someone _is_ here I don't want them getting away."

B.A. and Hannibal went to check the outside just to make sure there wasn't anybody out on the grounds or for that matter up on the roof. Face went to check the upstairs, Murdock decided to check the bottom, starting with the small cellar downstairs, and that left Lafferty alone in the dining room closet, finally able to get himself out, and just in time. It was too dark to see what was in the closet but he felt something wrap around his neck, if he'd bothered to stick around he would've seen it was some decorative artificial holly garlands that had started to fall out of the Christmas decorations box.

Now his plan was shot and the A-Team was too far split up for him to corner. He dreaded having to face Colonel Stewart and explaining to him what had happened. The best idea he could come up with was to corner Smith and Baracus out in the yard, true it was a wide open area, but it was the only way he could catch two members of the A-Team at the same time in the same place, so he headed for the front door, and stepped out onto the porch.

If it was possible at all, it had somehow gotten darker outside since he went in the house. It was also warm tonight too, and in his uniform, Lafferty was sweating up a storm. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from under his helmet, and tried to figure out his surroundings. He moved towards the porch stairs and walked clear into a bunch of newly spun spider webs, those little buggers must've been on overtime at this time of the year, because those webs hadn't been there when he tried the front door in the first place. Trying to get the silky webs off of his skin and clothes, Lafferty brushed against something else that felt like vines and leaves, one of those climbing flower plants he supposed. He felt along trying to reach the edge of the porch, and felt something slam down and just miss his hand, but whatever it was had slammed down on his handkerchief and he was pretty sure the thing ate it. If there would've been any light out that night, and if maybe he wasn't already so worked up and ready to jump out of his skin, he would've realized that he had only disrupted the old black metal mailbox hanging on the side of the house, its rusty old lid slammed down like a mousetrap springing into action at the first sensation of being touched.

The noise should've alerted the A-Team that somebody was in their midst, but nobody came to check it out, for which Lafferty was relieved, he was starting to feel that he didn't care if he helped catch these people or not. In his short military career he'd never had to put up with _anything_ as screwy as this spooky old house, and all he wanted to do was get out of there. He got off the porch, headed for the street to get to his car, but stopped when he heard somebody yelling like a banshee. He turned back towards the house, went around the house, and fell through an old cellar door he didn't see sticking up in the yard right against the house.

* * *

><p>By that time, Murdock had finished checking the cellar and was already back on the ground floor when he heard the yell and the crashing noise. He ran outside to find Hannibal and B.A. and find out what was going on, on the way he ran into somebody else and the two fell to the ground.<p>

"Faceman is that you?" Murdock asked, anxiously he added, "Aw please tell me it's you, Face, if it ain't, don't answer me."

"Murdock."

"Oh thank God," Murdock crawled over towards the other man and hugged him awkwardly, "I thought you were a ghost."

"Murdock, what was that loud noise?"

"I don't know, I just got here," Murdock answered.

"Where're B.A. and Hannibal?" Face asked.

"Here we are," Hannibal announced as he and B.A. walked around from the other side of the house.

"What was that screaming?"

"I don't know what the second one was," Hannibal said and pointed across the street, "But behind that fence over there, couple of teenagers out scaring each other. We told them to keep it down."

"What about that loud crash?" Face asked.

Hannibal shrugged, "Probably somebody tossing trash cans, you know how they do around Halloween."

"No I don't know," Face replied.

"Oh that's right, you were born after the _golden_ age of Halloween," Hannibal jokingly remarked.

"Tis Mischief Night," Murdock chimed in, "And nothing more."

"Maybe so, but I doubt it was any of those kids that opened that window and let that cat inside," Hannibal said.

"Yeah well if your hunch was correct and it was whoever is trying to get _into_ the house, wouldn't we have found them already?" Face asked.

"Maybe not," Hannibal insisted, "If they knew the house better than we do because they'd been there before, maybe a _lot_ of times before."

"Oh no," Face whined, "Here we go again."

"We gotta find out, Face, let's go," B.A. said.

"Where do we look now?" Murdock asked.

"Anyplace we haven't already looked," Hannibal said as they went up to the front porch and headed back inside, "We already checked the grounds outside, so let's tear apart the inside."

* * *

><p>Lafferty didn't know if he was awake, or if he'd been dreaming, or if he was asleep, or what, but he opened his eyes and found himself in the cellar of the house. A bunch of horrid memories came back to him and he couldn't remember if they were real or not, but he still stood by his earlier decision, he just wanted to get out of there. Maybe he had only been dreaming but he would <em>swear<em> that he had felt hands grabbing him, but there wasn't anybody here, so if it wasn't a dream, _whose_ hands had they been?

He found the steps he'd completely foregone when he simply _fell_ down in the basement and climbed out. Colonel Stewart and the MPs still hadn't arrived, what had happened to them? As he considered the possibilities, he felt his heart leap into his throat when he saw someone, he presumed it to be a woman, covered all in white like a sheet and shroud, pass by through the yard. As she walked, he swore he could hear a small, faint trace of music like the tinkling of bells. Actually what he was hearing was a glass wind chime tied up on the side of the house above him, an old one that the string holding it up had had several years to gradually wear down to the final thread, and it just snapped and the whole chime came crashing down on his head and broke into pieces.

That was it, he couldn't take it anymore, he didn't care what the Colonel did with him, he was getting out of here and he didn't care what happened next. He rounded the corner to get to the street, and came face to face so to speak with somebody else dressed in a white burial shroud, and _this_ one grabbed him. He screamed, but nobody heard him.

* * *

><p>The next thing Lafferty knew, he was back in the closet somehow. He felt jammed in, like the room had shrunk. He tried to find the door and get it open, but it was too dark. Just as he was wishing he had some light to see what he was doing, there <em>was<em> a light in the room; he looked behind him and saw a hand holding a lighter in its hand. He screamed and threw his weight against the door and forced it open. He took off running, out the front door, down the sidewalk, out to the street, forgetting his car completely, and he didn't stop running until he'd reached the Federal Building and found himself knocking on the door to Colonel Stewart's new office. The Colonel was not pleased.

"Where the hell have you been, Lafferty?" he demanded to know, "We went out to the house, the A-Team wasn't there, there was no sign of _anybody_ there, is this your idea of a joke? What the hell's the matter with you?"

The young MP couldn't even form coherent words at first, and once he could, what came next didn't make any sense to anybody standing in the room, "Captain…Mikey bad boy, Mikey step on tail of kitty cat, kitty cat," he snarled, "No, a talking cat! There's a bush that chokes people, and a flower that eats handkerchiefs, and the stairs slide all the way down, and there're giant spiders, that're bigger than your head!"

His incoherent garble was _not_ getting through to his Colonel however, who still adamantly demanded to know, "_Where's_ the A-Team?"

"There's somebody, two of them, a man and a woman, first bodies, then no bodies, just hands, one to grab people, one to light cigarettes, I'm gonna leave, I'm quitting," he addressed the floor beneath him for some reason, "I'm going home, Mommy!" and he continued to senselessly jibber jabber back out the door.

"What the _hell_ has gotten into him?" Captain Crane asked the newly appointed Colonel.

Just as Stewart shrugged, the door opened and Lafferty stepped back in and told the Colonel, "And just wait 'til you hear, till you see the girl who plays the music, and there's no music! _That's_ a beaut, oh that's a good one! You ought to see that one!" The MP pulled off his helmet to dig his fingernails rapidly through his hair like he was trying to scratch clear down to the bone. _Now_ he had the Colonel's attention, and the Captain's, and everybody else's.

"Lafferty!" Stewart looked like he'd seen a ghost.

For some reason, _that_ got the attention of the young MP with the severely frazzled nerves, and he started to come down. "What is it, Colonel?"

"What the hell did you do to yourself?"

"What do you mean, sir?"

With no further words, both Stewart and Crane pointed towards a mirror on the wall. Mike Lafferty was 26 years old, with a head full of bright chestnut hair, if anything he looked younger than his age. Not understanding what was the matter, Lafferty went over to the mirror, and saw his reflection, and saw his reflection's eyes bulge out as he saw that his full head of chestnut hair had now gone _all_ white. Not even 30 years old and somehow in one night, his hair had gone whiter than even Hannibal Smith's.

"Colonel," Crane murmured to Stewart, "_What_ is going on?"

Stewart continued to look ahead to the traumatized MP, but he told Crane very firmly, "I intend to find out."

* * *

><p>"I'm going to remember this Halloween for the rest of my life," Face said as they got back to Mrs. Hinckley's house, "<em>If<em> I have a rest of my life. I'm just about ready to have a heart attack."

They had heard sirens and seen flashing lights approaching the block and thought for sure the MPs had gotten them this time, but instead they found out that a house a couple streets down had caught on fire and was bordering on raging out of control and there were still people inside. So once again the A-Team played the part of 'Fireman, Save My Child' and assisted in getting the remainder of the people trapped in the house _out_ of the house so the firemen only had to worry about containing it from the outside instead of sending any of their men in to a very possible doom. Then they also had to fill in and assist anyway when burning debris fell on a couple of the firemen and they had to be rushed to the burn unit at the hospital. In all it took a couple of hours to make sure the flames were all extinguished and that the only remaining threat the neighborhood faced was the smoke blowing through the air, which would continue for the next couple days as the house stood there and smoldered. Now all of them were black with soot, sore, tired, and just wanted to get cleaned up and go back to sleep.

"Never a dull time at Halloween, eh guys?" Hannibal asked.

"Yeah, whoopity-do," Murdock twirled his finger in a cuckoo motion.

"Yeah," Face dryly added, "I'm so excited I could just barf."

"You ain't bunking with me tonight, Face," B.A. told him.

"Unfortunately I guess that means we missed all the action _here_," Hannibal said as they went inside, "If anybody _was_ here earlier, they're gone now."

"How would we know if they were?" Face asked.

"It's too late and we're too tired to mess with anything now," Hannibal said, "First thing in the morning we'll check everything and see if anything's been tampered with and/or missing."

"Sounds like a plan," Murdock said tiredly.

"I got a better one," Face said, "The minute this mission's over, I'm running away to Bora Bora for a couple weeks for a well deserved vacation."

"I like _that_ plan," Murdock told him.

A/N: Some of Lafferty's rambling dialogue is from the 1977 special, "Halloween With the Addams Family". I decided it was too funny not to use in part here.


	8. Chapter 8

Getting cleaned up after the fire took well over an hour for everybody, and when the last of them had finished washing up and changing into a clean pair of clothes, _everybody_ was ready to get some sleep. But that plan didn't work for very long. Hannibal could _just_ feel himself nodding off to sleep when he felt something bright shining in his face.

"B.A. will you turn the lights off and go to bed?" he asked.

The Sergeant's burly voice came from the other side of the bed and said confusedly, "_I_ didn't turn them on."

That got the Colonel's attention. Hannibal opened his eyes and turned over to face B.A. and said, "I suppose they went on by themselves then?"

"If you didn't turn them on, _yes_," B.A. answered firmly.

Hannibal turned towards the bedside lamp and checked the switch, it seemed to be working fine. He turned the knob on the switch and the lights went out again, and he didn't give it another thought, until two seconds later when they came right back on.

"Oh boy," he muttered to himself, suddenly getting the idea that this was going to be an even longer night.

* * *

><p>Across the hall, Face and Murdock were also trying to sleep, and also getting nowhere fast. Face was desperately trying to get some sleep before anything else happened, but he felt Murdock bump into him and grab him by the wrist.<p>

"Murdock," Face grumbled, not willing his eyes to open, "Get back over to your own side of the bed."

"Mmm," he heard the pilot mumble in his sleep.

"Murdock," Face moved and bumped the man next to him with his hip, "Get off of me."

"Mmm," Murdock continued to mumble groggily.

"Let go of me," Face told him, "Your hand's cold."

"Mm-hmm," Murdock was just about dead to the world.

Instead though, Face felt the other man's hand tighten, more and more until it started to become unbearable and Face was certain that the pilot was subconsciously trying to break his wrist, possibly from a dream or flashback, or something.

"Murdock," he gritted his teeth, "Let _go_ of me."

Murdock grumbled something half audible about he wasn't doing anything and Face felt the mattress shift as the other man flipped over, but he still maintained a death grip on the Lieutenant's hand.

"Murdock!" Face yelled as he opened his eyes, "LET GO OF MY HAND!"

Murdock opened his eyes and felt momentarily stunned when he pulled both of his own hands out from under him, and looked at them mysteriously.

"Uh, Face?"

"What?"

"Both my hands are _right here_," Murdock held them up for the conman to see.

"Wha?" Face shot up in bed and looked down at his wrist which had finger indentations dug into it, "Then who the hell was holding _my_ hand?"

* * *

><p>In the next instant, the occupants of both guest rooms were driven out of their beds by a deafening racket coming from downstairs; people screaming, brawling, gunfire, the works. They all came rushing out of their rooms and went down to investigate and carefully checked it out, but found no people. Everybody let out a minor sigh of relief when they saw it was just the radio in the living room that had been turned on and cranked up to full volume.<p>

"The little buggers have a sense of humor, they're playing with us," Hannibal said as he pulled the radio's cord out of the wall.

"Might be poltergeists then," Murdock said.

"Their behavior doesn't _match_ poltergeists," Hannibal responded.

"Besides," Face said, "Poltergeists are supposed to be drawn to children and there's no children here…." His eyes widened and he asked himself, "_What_ am I saying?" He looked to the others one by one and asked at the top of his lungs, "HOW did I know that?"

"Oh brother," B.A. grumbled, "I don't believe you fools, all this jibber jabber about ghosts, poltergeists, you're _all_ nuts."

B.A. moved to sit down in one of the chairs in the living room and instead wound up falling flat on the floor, he looked behind him and saw that the chair was now a foot behind where it had been when he sat down.

Then, a cold chill ran through the room like a window had been opened, they looked around and saw all windows were shut, but also felt their blood run equally cold when they saw the figure of a woman, bright and almost glowing, in a bright white dress, pass through the dining room, her face concealed from their view. Then, she came to the wall, and just disappeared.

"You still think so, B.A.?" Face asked when he was able to talk again.

For once, the big burly Sergeant was at a loss for words as he stood up.

"Okay," Hannibal said, taking control of the situation, "If we're going to find out what's going on around here, we're going to need some answers."

"From who, the ghosts?" Face asked.

"It's not a bad idea," Hannibal said, "We're going to try a séance."

"Oh boy," Murdock clapped excitedly.

"You can't be serious, Hannibal," Face shook his head slowly from one side to the other.

"Sure I can," Hannibal said, "I grew up in the heyday of spiritualism, occultism, séances, the whole ball of wax, I could do it in my sleep."

"I thought that was all just a lot of bunk that you could contact the dead," Face said.

"A lot of it was," Hannibal explained, "But nobody was ever able to debunk _every_ case where contact was said to be made. We've got nothing to lose by trying, so why not?"

"I'm with you, Colonel," Murdock said as he stepped over towards Hannibal, "Want me to get my Ouija board out of the van?"

"No thanks, we won't be using it," Hannibal said.

"I guess there are some things even Hannibal Smith won't touch with a ten foot pole," Face murmured.

"We'll move the dining room table in here because there's more room," Hannibal told them, "Come on and let's get moving."

Face shook his head in despair and commented, "This whole thing just keeps getting _weirder_ and _weirder_."

"Are you sure this is gonna work, Hannibal?" B.A. asked as they moved the table into the living room and then brought in the chairs.

"Well I've never done it myself before," Hannibal admitted, "And it's definitely been a while since this was an in-thing, so I might be a bit rusty on it, but if there's a way to make it work, I think I can do it."

"We're all gonna be turned into toadstools," Murdock confided in Face, then he turned to Hannibal and said loud enough for all to hear, "I have the fullest confidence in you, Colonel."

"Alright, everybody sit down," Hannibal said.

"Do we have to hold hands?" Face asked.

"I ain't holding hands with this crazy fool," B.A. pointed to Murdock.

"Oh come on, Big Guy, it'll be fun," Murdock said.

"No it won't," B.A. insisted.

"Just touch to maintain a connection between everyone," Hannibal instructed them.

"I still ain't touching his hand," B.A. said, and moved Murdock's chair over to the other side of the table and he sat down between Face and Hannibal and put his hands on the table for them to reach.

Murdock pouted with his bottom lip fully extended but sat down on the other side of the table and joined hands with Face and Hannibal.

"So now what do we do?" Face asked.

"Somebody has to lead it so it's going to be me," Hannibal said, "We're going to have to settle for any contact we can make, so if the spirits decide to speak through me I'm gonna…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, if they _what_?" Face asked, breaking hand contact with Hannibal.

"In some séances the spirits speak through the medium or the leader, and that person can either be wide awake and aware of what's going on or put in a trance, it's usually helpful to have an assistant write down anything the host says."

"I'll do that," Murdock raised his hand and reached into his pocket for a small notebook and pen.

"I just _had_ to join the Army," Face groaned and whined, "I just _had_ to wind up in you guys' unit."

"Shut up, Face," B.A. warned him, and reestablished contact by gripping Face's hand in his own, putting an extra squeeze in to drive his point home more.

"Okay, B.A., I got ya," Face said in a strained voice.

"Alright everybody, knock it off," Hannibal advised them, "Without full concentration this is never going to work."

"We'll be good," Murdock promised.

Hannibal glanced around the table at them one by one as if double checking to see if any of them cracked. Then, he put his hands flat on the table and everybody placed their hands together to establish contact, and Hannibal began. He closed his eyes and moved his head back as if looking to the heavens and he said, "We seek to make contact with the spirits who continue to roam this house. If they be present now, let them make themselves be known."

A moment passed and everybody waited anxiously, and nothing happened. And then suddenly, the table moved as if somebody had hit it from underneath, and had a loud accompanying knock to go with it.

"I guess that answers that," Face quietly murmured, "Good old table rapping."

He felt something hit him square on the foot like somebody pounding him with their fist.

"Ahhh!"

"Oh spirits," Hannibal called out, "Be it within our power, we seek to end your imprisonment on these grounds. We seek to know the identity of the spirits trapped in this house, to help us understand, if you choose to answer, rap once for 'no', and twice for 'yes'. Do you understand us?"

Another pause…everybody's eyes were racing around in their heads to see if anything happened, and then out of nowhere, a knock from under the table, and then a second.

"Yes," Hannibal said, "Okay then…are you the spirit of Allison Bregovy?"

One knock.

"Does her spirit reside here?"

One knock, then another.

"Are you the spirit of Martin Harrow?" Face thought to ask.

One knock.

"Do the spirits of the older couple murdered here in the 1890s still reside here?" Hannibal asked.

One knock.

The A-Team looked to one another.

"Their murder was never solved," Face said, confused.

"That we know of," Hannibal pointed out, and trying to address the spirits again he asked, "Was the person who murdered the older couple ever brought to justice?"

Two knocks.

"Smart ghosts," Murdock noted.

Hannibal shushed him and tried to continue. "Have there been other murders in this house the public never knew about?"

One knock, then another. Murdock's eyes widened and Face felt his spine turning to ice.

"How many other people were killed in this house?" Hannibal asked.

One knock.

"One other person not accounted for," Hannibal said.

Murdock broke contact long enough to scratch his head as they all pondered this realization.

"Are you tied in any way to Allison Bregovy?" Hannibal asked.

One knock.

"Are you connected somehow to Martin Harrow?"

One knock, two, and everybody's eyes looked to one another once again.

Hannibal decided to test the waters with something trickier and said to the spirits, "Can you tell us _how_ you're connected?"

Everybody waited to see what would happen or what they might hear. Nothing happened. Then, a slight breeze blew through the room again, everybody looked around to see what was going on, but they didn't see anything other than some of the lighter knickknacks in the room moving slightly in accordance to the draft blowing.

Hannibal fell back against his chair, his head thrown back, a loud groan ripping through his throat like he was in excruciating pain. He fell back again and his chair fell back and he wound up in the floor, still moaning and screaming. The others got up from the table and rushed to his side to find out what was the matter, but they couldn't see anything. After a moment, whatever happened seemed to cease, and Hannibal started to calm down, and then fainted dead away.

"Hannibal, are you alright?" Face asked when the Colonel came to a few seconds later.

Hannibal was trying to turn over on his stomach to push up on his hands and get up, his words were slightly slurred but he managed to get out, "Basement…it's in the basement."

"What is?" Murdock asked.

Hannibal got to his feet and took off running for the cellar door, with the others following behind him, very perplexed and feeling totally clueless about the whole thing.

The cellar was a small room shoddily put together many years ago with a limestone floor that was falling apart, walls brick and stone held together by mortar that was starting to give way and large holes were starting to form in some spots. Hannibal got on his knees and started feeling along the length of the broken stone floor and nobody had any idea what for. Face leaned back against a wall where the only part sure to stay standing was a large wooden board that had been put up to try outlining where a doorway would go that clearly hadn't been finished. Face felt something poking him and he turned and saw it was something sticking out of the chipped away stones in the wall. He grabbed whatever it was and with a little effort since most of it was still tightly in the wall, pulled it out, and screamed at the top of his lungs.

Everybody turned to the Lieutenant and asked him what was the matter, and he held up what he'd pulled out of the wall and screamed again, a part of a jawbone with teeth sticking out of it.

B.A. took it from Face and looked it over and told him, "Sucker, this' a dog's jawbone, probably been in the rocks for 50 years when they built the place."

"Ewwwww!" Face wiped his hands on his jeans as if he'd picked up something from the old bone, "That's disgusting!"

Hannibal wasn't particularly amused or even interested, he returned to feeling along the floor, for what, nobody knew. But Hannibal apparently knew what he was looking for, he scraped his nails against the edge of a piece of the stone floor, and with a little work, pulled one side of it up revealing it was a flat rock made to look like the rest of the floor. Pulling it up he revealed the ground beneath it wasn't as sturdy as the rest of the floor, and Hannibal started digging through the dirt with his hands, looking a bit like a man possessed by a dog.

"Hannibal, _what_ are you looking for?" Face asked.

He didn't answer, just continued clawing into the dirt, trying to unearth _something_. Finally, he _did_ hit something, and smashed his fingers, whatever it was made a metal clanking sound. He reached down into the hole and pulled out an old antique lockbox, looking something like a treasure chest.

"Face, pick this, get it open!" Hannibal tossed it to the Lieutenant, "Let's see what's in it."

"Lookout," Murdock warned Face, "There might be a bomb in it."

"Murdock, this box has to have been down here for at least 30 years," Face pointed out.

"Well," Murdock thought, "Maybe it's detonated when the lid's sprung."

Face sighed, rolled his eyes and attempted to work his magic on the old box, it took a little doing but he finally got the lock to give way. Inside the lock box were several bundles of old money, and an old letter folded and severely creased with age. Face took the letter out, carefully unfolded it and started to read: "To whom it concerns, my confession. I never wanted any of this to happen, but it has and nothing will change that, and I shall answer for the sins I committed and the ones I did nothing to stop."

"This ain't half a million dollars," Murdock said as he thumbed through some of the cash, "But I'll just bet it's some of the dough from the bank robbery Harrow was eyeballed for."

"And killed for?" Face asked.

"What's it say, Face?" Hannibal asked.

Face continued to read, "Twenty-five years ago my older brother, Darryl W. Byrne, murdered Allison Bregovy. The motive was greed, there were rumors she was left much money by a distant relative, but Darryl never found it. Empty-handed he went into hiding, and we sat back and watched while Martin Strauss was eyed as the key suspect in her murder. When the cops stopped suspecting him, he took off to conduct an investigation of his own…and when he got too close, Darryl killed him and brought him back here and buried him where he'd never be found." Face looked up from the letter, "The ghost said he wasn't connected to Allison Bregovy."

"The ghost also said he was killed _in_ this house, Martin would've been murdered somewhere else and then dumped here," Hannibal reminded his men.

"Two more ghosts?" Murdock asked in disbelief.

"I don't know how many more of them we can take, Hannibal," B.A. said.

Face looked to the letter again and continued to read, "People think this place is haunted, and it is, that Bregovy woman continues to wander the halls of this house, I've seen her since we came back. She has no rest because nobody knows who really killed her, now there'll no doubt be a new ghost added to the house's collection given nobody even knows Strauss _has_ been killed. I have no doubt there'll be _another_ additional ghost added to the grand total: Mark Harrow died here violently, _also_ at the hands of dear ol' Darryl, once again trying to get his hands on money that warn't his to take and not caring who he had to kill to get it. We'd both been partners with Harrow in the bank robbery, I only wanted my own share as was given to me, but Darryl wanted more than what he was owed and made sure he got it, and that Harrow couldn't come to collect. Should Darryl ever die, I suspect his soul will be condemned to this house, to face an eternity suffering at the hands of his victims in retribution."

"Does Darryl's little brother happen to sign his own name?" Hannibal asked.

Face skimmed down towards the bottom of the letter, "Yeah, Clive J. Byrne."

"He wouldn't be directly tied to Allison Bregovy but he _would_ be to Mark Harrow since they were partners in the bank robbery together," Hannibal said, "So Clive could very well have been his brother's latest victim _and_ the ghost we've been speaking to tonight."

From above, it sounded like somebody was pounding on the walls with a cannonball, the noise echoed all around like they were surrounded by whatever it was. It took a minute to realize they were hearing someone or something knocking, first once, then twice, and that made the blood drain out of _everybody's_ faces.

"Then why this?" Face gestured to the letter.

"Little brother obviously had a conscience, more so than big brother," Hannibal said, "He figured somebody eventually would dig up this floor for some reason and…"

They all looked to the floor as they considered what that meant.

"Why?" B.A. asked, "_Why_ would anybody dig up the basement floor?"

"Because something _else_ is buried under it," Hannibal said, "And whoever buried it, waited until nobody was looking to put it here."

"Like what?" Face asked.

"We've got to dig it up and find out," Hannibal told him.

"I don't get it," Face said, "Why didn't any of this happen when Mrs. Hinckley was living here?"

"Is it true that the living envy the dead?" Hannibal asked, seeming to be off in a la-la land of some kind at the moment, not fully there, not fully aware of his surroundings and he continued, "Can the dead envy the living?" He explained, "The house sat empty for a long time after Harrow's murder, possibly by the time Maude and her husband came here, they were glad for any human company, especially given they seem to have been a nice quiet couple that didn't give anyone any trouble. It's not official but the general consensus of life and death is that you're basically the same kind of person in death that you were in life; and clearly none of the people killed in this house were malicious in life. Allison and Strauss were going to get married, deeply in love, Harrow might've been a bank thief but there's nothing that suggests he was a downright miserable human being. And obviously little brother was feeling remorse for everything that happened, when Cain came for Abel again, it's possible he just accepted his fate, unfinished though it was."

"So why're they doing all this to us?" Face didn't get it.

"For one thing," Hannibal said, "Because they know that we took Maude away from them, they don't know us, they don't trust us, they may very well resent _us_ being here. But also, they know that we're more inclined to be able to do something to help them leave this place than an old woman could."

"So what do we do now?" Murdock asked.

"We've got to dig up the floor and find whatever or whoever's buried under it," Hannibal said, "After that we've got to find a way to get in touch with the authorities and let them close the books on all this."

"But there's something that still doesn't make any sense," Face reminded Hannibal, "What you said before, _why_ was anybody trying to scare Mrs. Hinckley out of here?"

"Probably because Big Brother's still alive and fairly well," Hannibal said, "And he's coming back to get the rest of the money. He'd definitely be older by now but that doesn't usually stop anyone who's truly determined."

"He's had 30 years to get it, why would he wait this long?" Face asked.

"Maybe he's paranoid, wants to make sure nobody can identify him by the time he comes back, otherwise he's just being unusually careful for somebody so mean and stupid," Hannibal guessed, "Or it's just possible that he's got somebody new and young to follow in his footsteps, that's not impossible either. Or they decided to carry on in his place _without_ him, that's entirely possible too."

"But anywhere he'd take that money they'd know it's older than normal," B.A. pointed out.

"Which leads us to another possibility, that he's stayed gone long enough to build up enough money he can switch the old bills for new bills and not miss them," Hannibal said, "Any way you look at it, it's immensely possible…so what we've got to do now is figure out how we can get a hold of the authorities to look into this."

"Don't bother," they heard a voice from the foot of the stairs, followed by a gun cocking, "They're already here."

They all turned and saw Colonel Stewart and several MPs at the bottom of the stairs with guns drawn on them.

"We need Dick Tracy and we wind up with Beetle Bailey instead, that's just fate," Hannibal commented as he and the others assumed the position and reached for the sky. "Beggars can't be choosers _indeed_."


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Last chapter. Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!

"You're making a big mistake here, Stewart," Hannibal said as he and the rest of the A-Team were marched at gunpoint, single file up the basement stairs and back into the living room where they were surrounded by MPs.

"You're the ones going back to Fort Bragg for a court martial, then a firing squad, you tell me who made the mistake," Colonel Stewart replied as he finally chanced lowering his own sidearm and putting it back at his side for the time being.

"You don't get it," Hannibal told him, "There's a murdered man buried on this property, maybe two of them, we have to find them and dig them up so their spirits can finally rest."

The newly promoted Colonel was not amused as he responded to Hannibal, "Even for _you_, Smith, that's a new one."

"I'm serious," Hannibal said.

"He is too," Face added, "We can tell the difference because he seldom is."

"You be quiet, Peck," Stewart ordered.

"Okay," Face said quietly as he kept his hands extended high above his head.

Stewart walked around and looked them all over for good measure, and he stopped at the pilot and clicked his tongue, "Captain Murdock, _imagine_ running into you here."

"Wait a minute," Murdock looked around the living room, "This isn't my hospital room. Where's my straitjacket?"

"Believe me I wish I knew," Stewart replied.

The MPs kept their guns on the A-Team so nobody could try anything fast or funny for a quick break. Captain Crane made it his own job to step up to each member of the A-Team and relieve them of any guns they had on them, in total he picked close to a dozen off of all of them combined.

"Come on, Stewart, I'm _guessing_ you have some brains to you," Hannibal said, "What possible reason could there be for the four of us to be in this house on Halloween?"

"You robbed the bank of Hanoi, relieved it of a million dollars, it's to my understanding this house has always been suspected of housing half that much in it that nobody's ever found."

"You don't really believe that," Face said.

Stewart reached in his pocket and took out one of the bundles of cash they'd found in the basement, "You tell me, Peck."

"We didn't come here for money," Hannibal told the other Colonel, "We didn't even _know_ there was money here when we came."

"Oh sure, you just decided to stop in here for the heck of it, right, Smith?"

"Not exactly," Hannibal replied, his cheeks taking on the slightest hint of red as his face took on the expression of that of a small boy caught in a compromising situation he couldn't explain his way out of.

"We just came here to help someone," Face swore.

"Who?"

"Mrs. Hinckley who lives here," Face answered.

"There's nobody here," one of the MPs said.

"Of _course_ she's not here," Face said, "We sent her away for the night so she'd be safe."

"Do tell," Stewart said sarcastically, "Safe from what?"

"From the guy who _put_ those bodies under the ground on this property," Hannibal said, "We firmly believe he's coming back tonight and that's why he's been sending threats to the woman who lives in this house."

"Oh come on, Smith," Stewart said, "You don't _really_ expect us to believe _that_, do you?"

"If he was lying he could do better than that," Face pointed out, "He's had years of experience."

Stewart got in Hannibal's face and inquired, "Where is the old woman?"

"We put her up in a motel for the night."

"_What_ motel?"

"I don't know," Hannibal said.

A lot of eyes in the room started to turn towards Face, who shook his head and said, "Don't look at me, I don't know either."

When the eyes turned towards B.A. and Murdock, the Sergeant merely growled, Murdock told them, "I don't know, I wasn't here for it."

"_Very_ interesting," Stewart said cynically, "A woman you can't produce because you took her to a motel _you_ don't know."

"Who said we took her?" Murdock asked.

"If _you_ didn't, who did?" Crane asked.

Nobody said a word, they were in this up to their necks but they weren't about to implicate Amy in helping them.

"I'm sure the Army will be _very_ interested in your story when you're returned to Fort Bragg to face your original trial, and the one you'll face for escaping the stockade."

Hannibal leered at Stewart and told him, "That's what I like about you, Stewart."

His comment took the Colonel off guard and he asked Hannibal, "What?"

"Nothing, just like what _you_ are," Hannibal said, "Now since you're already here, you've _got_ to dig up the property and find out where those bodies are buried."

"I've had about all I'm going to take from you, Smith," Stewart jabbed him in the stomach with the muzzle of his sidearm, "For years I followed along with Colonel Lynch and every single time watched as you managed to make a fine bunch of jackasses out of the Army and every time you rode off into the sunset, well it's not gonna happen now."

"Well _duh_," Murdock said, "It's going on 4 in the morning, that's about 10 hours too late for sunset."

Stewart ignored Murdock and told Hannibal, "And maybe Decker was just too soft or too _stupid_ but somehow he kept winding up as incompetent on the job as Lynch was, well not this time. _This_ time you're going to be brought to justice and I'm going to be only too happy to hand you over to the Army myself."

Face felt a cool chill running over the back of his neck, he turned towards Murdock and saw by the puzzled look the pilot was giving him in return that he was feeling the same thing. The ghosts were on the move again. But what were they going to do now?

"You've certainly made quite a name for yourselves over the years, Smith, but it's all mud now," Stewart said, "The whole lot of you are going to be on the first plane heading back to North Carolina before the sun's up."

Now Hannibal and B.A. were also noticing the cold breeze in the room and felt the wind pressure starting to build up and felt like they'd just been dropped in a percolator just about to hit the ceiling.

"If I had it my way," Stewart continued, "It would be my mission in life to watch the four of you at your court martial and _personally_ have you all lined up against the wall and _shot at sunrise!_"

And the percolator just exploded. The whole room was filled with gusting winds that would've served well in a hurricane, the A-Team were all blown back against the walls but a secondary gust seemed to target in on the whole lot of MPs and round them all up until they were forced into the same part of the room. They were all screaming, disoriented, trying to figure out what had happened and what was going on, but whatever caused the winds, they just kept blowing, until they forced Stewart and every last one of the MPs out of the living room. The A-Team got to their feet and followed after the group of military men to see where the spirits of the house were taking them and Hannibal noticed they were all being forced back towards the cellar door. Hannibal took off running after them.

"Hannibal!" Murdock hollered to be heard over the gusting winds that practically screamed like a bunch of banshees.

"Hannibal! Get back here you crazy fool!" B.A. called.

Hannibal didn't listen, instead he caught up with the large group of men in green who were continually being thrown around in a moving circle like it was a round room at the carnival. Hannibal reached a hand out and waited for the right moment and grabbed Captain Crane by his arm as he came spinning by in the revolving body of people.

"Let him go!" Hannibal called to the spirits, he and he alone knowing that while Crane firmly believed in the cause of catching the A-Team, he above all others was not pure evil. Decker had said it best, Crane knew the meaning of loyalty, for that alone, even if the captain had no idea why, Hannibal struggled for him to be spared from whatever fate the ghosts had in store for the rest of them.

Somehow, for some reason, Hannibal's pleas worked and Crane was physically forced out of the circle and fell on Hannibal and they both hit the floor, then everybody watched as the rest of the MPs, and their esteemed colonel, were forced down the cellar steps, and the door slammed shut and locked itself, and then the upstairs was calm.

"What the hell is going on here?" Crane wanted to know as they got up, his eyes wide and bulging after what he just witnessed.

"I tried to tell him," Hannibal said as he caught his breath, "The house is haunted."

Crane turned to him and asked in disbelief, "_What_?"

Another wind came up, and the lights all swung and vibrated and shook, and the whole house felt like there was an earthquake taking place, but down below they could hear the terrified yells and cries of all the MPs as something very supernatural took place in the cellar.

To hear 20 grown, military hardened men scream as the A-Team could hear coming up through the floor and the air vents, was to know true terror, despite being only a second hand witness to it. The room still felt like the whole house was shaking and Face and Murdock grabbed onto each other in a panic, nobody had any idea what was going on or what was going to happen to any of them.

After what felt like an eternity but in reality was only a few moments, the shaking stopped, the screams died down, soon everything was quiet. Hannibal was the first one to make a move towards the cellar door.

"Hannibal, wait!" Face called after their leader, "You don't know what's down there."

"I have to find out," Hannibal responded as he all but ripped the lock off and forced the door open.

The others followed after him, half wondering and half dreading what they might find.

Nothing could've prepared any of them for what they found. The MPs were scattered on all sides of the basement room, some of them in shock, others unconscious, Colonel Stewart sprawled out on the middle of the floor, his own hair suddenly a new shade of gray, his eyes staring up towards the ceiling but seeing nothing. This however was not all, one of the brick walls had partially been destroyed and a nice sized hole rested in the middle of the wall, and laying in a heap just out of that hole was a jumbled set of human remains, more skeleton now than anything. Even this however, was not all. They hadn't really noticed before, on the other end of the room was a set of stairs leading up to a set of storm cellar doors out in the yard, but now those doors were blown wide open, and there was a body sprawled out over the stairs, a man who looked to be either in his late 60s or early 70s, still alive, though banged up and unconscious.

"That must be our infamous Big Brother Darryl W. Byrne," Hannibal said. He turned to Crane and told him, "I _tried_ to tell Stewart, the woman who lives in this house had been threatened with her life if she didn't leave. Given the house already had a reputation for being haunted, I couldn't help but wonder why…_now_ we know." He pointed to the body that had fallen out of the wall, "That's either his little brother who was ready to blow the whistle on him, or the fiancée of Allison Bregovy who was killed and dumped here. There's still the matter of finding the second body."

"I don't think so," Face said in an almost shaky tone, he pointed a finger towards the storm doors and said, "Look!"

Hannibal climbed the first couple steps to get a better look at what Face was pointing to, and he stopped and his breath caught in his throat when he saw it, a skeletal hand reaching down into the cellar. Hannibal stepped over Darryl Byrne's body and made it to the top of the stairs, and saw that it was a full bodied skeleton laying flat on the ground by the cellar door, looking like somebody had just draped it out there like a bear rug. He looked out to the yard to try and figure out where it had come from and got his answer when he noticed a large hole suddenly standing in the middle of the yard. Who could've dug the hole, who could've gotten the skeleton out, and placed it here at the door, he didn't know, he could guess, but he had a feeling that the answer wasn't one that anybody wanted to hear. The spirits in this house were not flat out malicious, but they all had just reason to be angry, and they'd had a long time for that anger to build up, and tonight they decided to take it out on who they deemed responsible, even if just by mere association. The ghosts firmly believed the A-Team was trying to help them find peace, and the MPs threatened to take them away before anything could be done to help the dead, so the dead had issued their own means of retribution on the matter.

"Hannibal!" Murdock called from down in the basement.

Hannibal turned around and made his way back down the stairs, "What now?"

Everybody was wide eyed and looking over towards the hole in the wall, he looked too, and he saw what they saw, and it was definitely a mind blowing sight. The transparent figures of a woman in a long white dress and a man in a dark suit stood several feet away from each other, looked at one another, and went to the other. They spoke though no words could be heard by anybody present in the room, but the two spirits joined hands and looked into each other's eyes and each looked like the weight of the world had just been lifted off their shoulders, and in a passionate embrace they disappeared.

"Justice," Hannibal finally spoke, getting the attention of everyone in the room, "Has been served."

* * *

><p>Crane had to be the one to call in for help, backup, paramedics, half of the MPs were in shock, the other half seemed to be bordering on catatonic. Nobody would ever believe what had happened in that house that night, and he couldn't explain it and sound anymore credible, even though he knew it was the truth. Hannibal got on the phone to Amy and told her that it was safe to bring Mrs. Hinckley back, but also to put her reporter magic to good use and print up a headline story for the Courier.<p>

"For several decades many stories have been told about the brick house on Elmhurst Lane, known to many as the Bregovy house, to others as the Harrow House. Stories have spun for years that the house was haunted by the dead. This has been found to be true, as authorities discovered the remains of two bodies, who are believed to be the victims of foul play, on the house's property early this Halloween morning," Hannibal read from the article, "A suspect was found at the scene, identified as Darryl W. Byrnes, who police believe to be responsible for the murders of Allison Bregovy in 1933, Bregovy's fiancée Martin Strauss, who was a suspect in her murder, in 1942, Martin Harrow in 1957, and his own brother, Clive J. Byrne, estimated by the county medical examiner as having been murdered in 1958, based on evidence found at the scene."

"Now that the whole city knows the truth, and the ghosts are gone," Face said, "Maybe Mrs. Hinckley will be able to live there in peace."

"And maybe now people will stop acting like her house is the gateway to hell," Murdock added.

"We can only hope," Hannibal said as he tucked the paper away and looked out the window as they drove along. He folded his arms behind his head and smiled and said, "I've got a feeling this is going to be a good Halloween for everybody."

"Yeah well, just to be sure, I left the candy and apples at Mrs. Hinckley's house," Murdock said, "If any ghosts are still around, _or_ if she'd happen to get some gutsy trick-or-treaters tonight, she'll be all set."

"It's a plan," Hannibal said.

"Yeah," Face replied, "And I love it when a plan comes…"

"Uh-uh-uh!" Hannibal warned him, "No you don't, Face."

Face let out a particularly large yawn and told the others, "After the night we've just had, all I want to do is go home and go to bed."

"Sounds good to me," B.A. agreed.

"Me too," Murdock added.

"Well it's unanimous, Face," Hannibal said, "We'll _all_ go home with you and crash."

"Very funny," Face grumbled, then spoke up, "As it just so happens, I've been renting out this penthouse that should be big enough to fit everybody."

"That's fine," Hannibal replied, and yawned himself, "I have feeling though we're at a point now that we could sleep anywhere."

"On anything," Murdock added.

As it turned out, Face's penthouse apartment had a king sized bed in the master bedroom, a regular double in a second room, and a full sized couch that could easily sleep two on it. Face had called the king sized bed, naturally, and was dead to the world as soon as his head hit the pillow. B.A. and Hannibal were bunking in the guest room, Murdock was the only one still up. He'd helped himself to an apple and a glass of milk so he wouldn't have to sleep on an empty stomach; then it occurred to him that he still felt a bit wired, so instead of taking a nap, he decided to see what was on TV. For such a fancy place, the Faceman had a very old television set, still had knobs on it instead of buttons. Murdock turned the knob to turn it on, and turned the other knob to go through the channels, he finally settled on one that was having a horror movie marathon on for Halloween. It sounded good to Murdock, until he saw the lineup was '13 Ghosts', followed by 'House on Haunted Hill', followed afterward by 'The Haunting', followed after that with 'The Legend of Hell House', and finally ending with 'The House of Seven Corpses'.

"Nope," Murdock decided as he turned the knob and shut the TV off. Then he laid out on the couch, pulled his baseball cap down over his eyes, hiked one leg up over the top of the couch, and fell asleep.

* * *

><p>Two weeks later Hannibal was at his apartment packing a bag when he heard the phone ring. Not his regular phone, a secondary phone he'd installed himself, only <em>one<em> person had that number. He had a laugh as it occurred to him that with all that mystery and anonymity, it might as well be the Bat Phone.

"I'm having a stipulation put on this phone's services," he said into the receiver, "No incoming calls from salesmen, telemarketers _or_ annoying Colonels."

Decker's voice responded over the line, "Are you up to a race, Smith?"

"You should've called sooner," Hannibal told him, "We're getting ready to hop a plane heading for Brazil."

"You don't _hop_ any plane heading anywhere," Decker said, "Not with that Sergeant of yours, we'll catch up," he added menacingly.

"I look forward to it," Hannibal told him, "Where shall we meet?"

"How does half a mile from the airport grab you?" Decker asked him.

"We can work that fine," Hannibal replied, "I'll see you then, oh," he started to put the receiver down but picked it up again and said into it, "And by the way, Decker, welcome back."

"Exactly _what_ happened while I was gone?" the Colonel wanted to know.

"You mean Crane hasn't told you?" Hannibal asked, surprised.

"The only thing he _did_ tell me is that I'd never believe him," Decker told him.

"Well he's right," Hannibal said, "Look, Roderick, sometime when you've got the time and I've got the interest, I'll explain it to you over a couple of cold beers. For now, we've got a plane to catch, and you've got a whole parade of new MPs to introduce to the chase."

"Just be ready, Smith," Decker warned him, "Otherwise we're going to mop the floor with you."

"Keep dreaming, Decker," Hannibal replied with a knowing smirk, "Ta-ta," and slammed the receiver down.

With that, he slammed his suitcase shut and headed out the door. Half a mile from the airport, which they could reach in about 10 minutes, they could swing that _just_ fine. Even a fugitive from the government could appreciate the normalcy of a routine workday in his life. And quite frankly after the last mission they had, he'd gladly show up 100 MPs instead taking on another batch of ghosts to appease. He didn't know what had become of the last batch, nor for that matter of their fearless leader Stewart, after they were taken away by the paramedics, but he knew that none of them would ever breathe a word about what had happened to them down in that basement. He could only imagine what the spirits had done to the men, but at the same time he couldn't say he wasn't grateful to the ghosts coming through for them and helping them to get away unscathed by the military once again.

His mother, and both his grandmothers for that matter, had been firm believers in ghosts and spirits, they didn't necessarily buy into all the spiritualism jazz that was the big trend of their day, but he'd learned from them a lot on what it took to pay respect to the dead when you were in their presence, you never knew when it might come in handy later, and it certainly _had_ come in handy for all of them that fateful Mischief Night. And for that, he would always be grateful to his mother, and his grandmother, _and_ his grandmother, and to Murdock for sharing that belief of respect owed the dead, _and_ to the dead for taking the trouble of listening to _him_. It was definitely a night he knew he'd never forget, _nobody_ involved with that house that night would _ever_ forget it, and strangely enough, he felt a small sense of relief that Decker _had_ been incapacitated in the hospital during that time. Decker wouldn't believe the truth just hearing it, he wouldn't believe the truth if he'd witnessed it either, but at least this way that was one _less_ person for Hannibal to wonder about the state of his sanity.

He exited the apartment building and saw Face and Murdock leaning against the wall.

"B.A.'s beddy-bye drink work yet?"

"Yep," they answered.

"Great," Hannibal tossed his suitcase to Murdock, "Let's get out of here before Decker has a chance to figure out where we are."

"Back to business as usual," Murdock chimed as they headed to the van.


End file.
